Dancing on the Sky
by Mizzy
Summary: Grief can be a hard thing to come to terms with, sorrow can be a recalcitrant adversary, and hope is the hardest thing to find in the middle of a storm when all you can do is dance on the sky and hope for the best.
1. Angels Would Fall...

**Dancing on the Sky**

**Part One - "Grid of Misery"**

_Chapter One_ - "Angels Would Fall

Author: Mizzy

E-mail: PG-13

This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by Diane Duane, and various publishers. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Summary: Grief can be a hard thing to come to terms with, sorrow can be a recalcitrant adversary, and hope is the hardest thing to find in the middle of a storm when all you can do is dance on the sky and hope for the best.

Author's Notes: Many thanks to my beta _Destiny_, who has made '_Dancing on the Sky' _a little easier to read, and a whole lot more American sounding.

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The garden of the Callahans' house was falling into a state of disrepair. Nita's father still kept his job of landscaping gardens, to keep the money flowing in and keep the household ticking as much as possible, but their own garden—once a glorious testament to Mr. Callahan's talent—was now as much of a state of disrepair as the weed-covered back garden of their next-door neighbours.

Nita could hear the plants' pain as she walked up the narrow path that led to their front door, and usually kept that trip as short as possible. It was an extra ache on her soul, but one she couldn't bear to deal with. A lethargy which had plagued her since the funeral still washed over her, and showed no signs of letting her rise from its strengthening hold. She'd tried to struggle at first, knowing her mother would have wanted her to be happy, to be able to do what she did before, but she couldn't. She was too tired to do anything any more, and although a tiny part of herself was bursting to break free, the rest of her remained solemn and untouchable.

Dairine had seemed to get over the shock the fastest. The tiny, powerful wizard had locked herself into her room, using her desk to barricade anyone coming in, and had sobbed violently for an entire week before appearing to be as cheerful as before. She'd lately taken to doing various things to cheer her father up, and it seemed to be working. Their dad had been coming more and more out of his shell every day, prompted by his youngest daughter's more optimistic look on life, but just as prevented by his eldest's pessimistic cloud that followed her around everywhere she went.

The truth was, Nita was drowning, falling in her own grief and sorrow, and it was if she couldn't remember how to swim any more.

Shifting her pile of books and homework to one side, and staring at the clock perched on her wall for a long second, Nita pushed away from the desk and got to her feet. Bending down and pulling on her sneakers, she grabbed her windbreaker from the back of the door and slid it on; feeling the reassuring and equally damning weight of her manual in the front pocket of the light jacket. She'd taken it out last night, sitting in the coolness of the clearing she'd discovered her Wizardry in, all those months ago… Right now, she'd been wishing she'd let the book stay in the library, and had returned to her normal life even with the bullies. Surely it wouldn't have hurt so much as this did now…

She'd taken her manual out into the comforting arbor of trees and bushes to practice a little. After a harrowing dream which had plagued the half-hour of sleep she'd actually been able to snatch, she'd been scared that she'd lose her wizardry through lack of use. Just because it had been of no use once didn't mean it wouldn't be useful another time, and Nita didn't want that to happen, for something even more terrible to happen just because she wasn't prepared.

That, of course, got her thinking about what could be more terrible, and she shook herself violently, not wanting to tread down that path . . . Ed, Fred, her mom . . . Too many people were being lost, and Nita remembered with stomach-churning horror the events in Ireland and had to cling to the edge of her chair to stop herself being too dizzy. Loss was something, the manual said, that had to be dealt with. The One's damage raged still and constantly across the universe, and if she hadn't known Timeheart existed, Nita didn't know if she'd be able to cope with it at all.

_Looking always towards the heart of time. . ._

Timeheart was the only place she'd ever felt quite so at rest, where she'd felt the peace the same as when she'd walked into the huge New York library and stepped reverently along the polished floor, her footsteps echoing in the hanging silence of the building.

Resting her wrist against the edge of her desk, Nita pulled up her left sock that had managed to wrinkle and fade under the top of her trainers, and, pushing her wallet into her pocket, pushed open the door. Feeling faintly hungry, but unable to face the weak smell of some kind of casserole floating up from upstairs, she figured she might run for a while, and maybe pick up a hot dog somewhere.

Moving into the hall, Nita was surprised to see Dairine shuffling out of her room and standing there in front of her huge Lord of the Rings poster that decorated her door rubbing her eyes and looking fatigued.

"Hey, Dari," Nita said lightly, not trusting herself to say anything more. Dairine stopped rubbing her eyes and blinked slowly back at her sister, looking smaller than ever in a baggy promotional T-shirt for Scooby Doo: The Movie and looking as if she hadn't slept at all.

"Nita," Dairine acknowledge swiftly, taking in her sister's apparel quickly. "You going out?"

"No," Nita replied, feeling more than little frustrated, "I'm going to jog around the living room in circles."

Dairine pulled a wry face at Nita's sarcasm. "At least one thing hasn't changed about you. You gonna go see Kit? 'Cause I have a box of dog biscuits." She frowned at her sister's expression. "Don't look like that, Neets, they were giving away free samples yesterday at the mall."

"Hm," Nita replied indifferently. "I suppose I can drop it by."

Dairine narrowed her eyes for a second, and Nita thought she was frowning for a long moment until there was a soft pop! and a small box of _Butcher's Chicken-Flavored dog biscuits_ appeared out of nowhere.

"Show off," Nita muttered fondly, reaching out, taking the biscuits and ruffling Dairine's hair before turning her back and starting down the stairs.

"Dad's doing casserole, I'll save you some if you're hungry later," Dairine called softly. "Don't eat too many hot dogs."

Nita flicked a two-fingered insult in her sister's direction as she disappeared out the front door and pulled it shut behind her. Wrapping her jacket tighter around her shoulders, and staying still on the main step, she let her gaze drift around the drooping plants, and the golden leaves gently splayed all over the path. Fall was one of her favourite seasons; although the world was dying a little in preparation for the new biting cold of winter, the entire world seemed ablaze in the fall months. Golden browns and yellows and orange in a blaze of colour that swept across the horizon and seemed to liven up the slow life of the suburban areas of Long Island.

Lowering her head, Nita pushed past the plants and their wounded cries for help, and hurried round the corner of the block until her house was out of sight. Checking the low position of the sun in the sky, and placing the time at nearly 5 pm in the afternoon, Nita stayed still, undecided as what to do. The manual suggested keeping in top physical condition for any future wizardry, and Ronan, in his rare letters from Europe, had told her how he'd taken up jogging every day. Nita almost wished she lived in Ireland, with its green roving countryside and the beautiful accents, and then was glad she lived in America. America was, as yet, uncorrupted by wizardry, and the stains that magic left on the area weren't so widespread as in older countries. Mind you, with the amount of wizardry she'd been doing lately, it wouldn't be so much of a problem. Kit would have felt restricted by the restriction of wizardry—he had felt restricted in the tumultuous events there—he was more of a free spirit, like Nita in so many ways, and enjoyed the freedom of life as well as acknowledging its restrictions. Thinking of Kit brought a small lump to her throat, and she felt the vague feeling of remorse welling in her chest. He didn't deserve the way she'd been treating him recently, what with Ronan, and her mother, and generally pulling apart from everything and everyone. She wanted it to be like it was before so much, but it could never be as it was.

Never.

Deciding on a quick run before she dropped off the biscuits to Kit's, she shoved the box in with her manual and started to jog lightly. Before long, she increased her pace along the fall-tainted streets, splashing through drifts of the golden leaves that reached in some places up past her ankle. Almost a dull blur, Nita only slowed down as she realised she was near the block where Kit lived. Stopping by the blue metal post box on the corner, Nita leaned against the cool surface as she fought to regain her breath. She wouldn't normally even be out of breath, but as she checked her watch and the darkness that was slowly falling from the sky, she realised she'd been running for at least thirty minutes.

After waiting for her pulse to return to normal, Nita made sure her manual and the biscuits were still in place. Taking a deep breath, Nita lifted her gaze and let it move until she could just see the Rodriguez house and felt a rush of brief, irrational panic. Swaying slightly on her feet, Nita swallowed and walked tentatively along the sidewalk. Her partnership with Kit was something she relied on for her wizardry. Although she knew wizardry was possible by itself, by herself, Nita didn't like it when she had to do it alone. It just seemed that tiny bit emptier, just that bit . . . weird.

Suddenly she almost understood what it was like for her father . . . Something that was two and suddenly now was one, without being able to do anything about it or stop it from happening . . .

Feeling the sting of tears again, welling and threatening to splash onto the sidewalk below, Nita told herself off sharply and rubbed her eyes with her sleeve. She couldn't stop crying, not now, not when she lay awake in bed wishing and hoping and dreaming helplessly, and somehow it wasn't even seeming to do any good. People always said to let grief run its full course, and that crying helped, but neither of those options seemed to do anything at all.

Forcing the tears not to come, she clenched her hands and unclenched them, letting them fall by her side. She didn't know if she could face Kit, but she had to do it sometime, and something her mom always said came back to her. _Whenever I first attended ballet lessons, it was combined with gymnastics, and I was hopeless at the asymmetrical bars . . . But every time I fell down, and hurt myself badly, I had to get back up, else I would have never got back up . . . And eventually that skill helped me get the job I'd always wanted . . ._ Nita remembered how her mom would dance for her in the kitchen, a little performance just for her, and she felt that indefinable sense of fatigue again. She remembered asking her mom why she didn't use the falling off a horse allegory everyone else used, and her mom had replied with how she despised routine and clichés. Normally she'd say this while doing her usual four o' clock preparation of vegetables.

Straightening herself again, and wondering how hard it could actually be, Nita forced herself to walk the few remaining meters to Kit's front door, and was about to lift her hand to rap smartly on the door when the door flew open and she stumbled a little. Looking upwards, her cheeks stained red in the embarrassing rush of acute awkwardness, Nita came face to face with her wizardry partner.

Kit looked at her, the soft look of concern changing to one of mild amusement, and Nita blocked out the sudden rush of thought that she heard from him. He was worried, unsure of how to react, worried about her, a little desperate to understand why she blocked him out of her life . . .

"Carmela saw you coming from the upstairs window," he said offhandedly, jerking his head to where his older sister lounged in the hallway, in tight black pants and a baggy Rayearth t-shirt.

"Hello to you too," Nita said with a brief smile, feeling awkward as she stood on the doorstep. Kit sensed her discomfiture and stood to one side, gesturing for her to come in.

The smell was the first thing that hit Nita as she walked in through the door and kicked off her shoes, leaving them in a mess next to Kit's neatly ordered sneakers that stood along the row of the family shoes. A spicy smell filled Nita's nostrils, and the bustle of pans in the kitchen made Nita realise Mrs. Rodriguez was cooking one of her spicy dishes; probably something Indian considering the pile of Indian Recipes next to the phone on the small table in the hallway.

Kit smiled at her reassuringly, and Nita self-consciously removed her windbreaker, hanging it on one of the spare pegs. Lifting the box of biscuits out of the pocket, she turned round and waved them vaguely at Kit. Kit looked at the label and pulled a face.

"Chicken? Oh man, he'll be hyper for a week." He took the box and grinned at her. "Fantastic."

_"Did someone mention chicken?"_

A cheerful face appeared at the doorway, a foot or so off the floor, and Nita was almost floored by Ponch. The huge black Labrador-cum-border-collie-cum-whatever-he-was bounded at her feet, and Nita scratched behind his left ear.

_"Oh man that's great Kit doesn't know how to do this… aw… Nita I missed you."_

Nita straightened up with a reluctant grin. _"I missed you too, Ponch. I've just not been myself recently…"_

_"Understandable! What's this about chicken?"_

Nita nodded at the box in Kit's hand. _"The mall was giving away free samples of chicken dog biscuits."_

_"Butchers?"_

_"Yes."_

_"Givemegivemegivemegivemegiveme!"_

Ponch started to jump up and down, knocking the box in Kit's hand to the floor and Kit bent and picked it up before Ponch could rip it up.

"Let's go out in the garden," Kit suggested, glaring sternly at Ponch as if to say 'you bounce up at my hands one more time and no more food for you for the week.'

Ponch got the message, and considering it was Monday he bent his head down low and stopped wagging his tail; following Nita and Kit as they stepped outside into the Rodriguez's back garden. The small backyard was carpeted in a sheet of gold and red that sparkled as the last rays of sunlight danced across them, and Nita took a moment to enjoy the sound that they made as they walked over them to sit down on the rickety bench Mr. Rodriguez had constructed a few months ago and wasn't safe for anyone to sit on after Ponch had jumped on it a few times.

Kit kept his hands occupied dropping Ponch some biscuits and avoided Nita's gaze as he played with the flap of the box. Ponch rolled on his back and wagged his tail furiously, and Nita tickled him fondly before turning to face Kit.

"I'm sorry --"

Blinking furiously, Kit's head lurched up to meet Nita's confused gaze, and she flushed brilliantly while Kit was the one who looked embarrassed this time.

"Well, at least we're back to trying to talk at the same time," Kit said lightly, flicking one of the biscuits into the leaves.

_"Chickenchickenchickenbiscuits! Oh man this is paradiiiise,"_ Ponch cooed as he pounced for the biscuit and sat chewing it contentedly in the whirlwind of leaves he'd created in his enthusiasm.

"I missed that," Nita said frankly.

"Me too. But it's not like you --" Kit stopped suddenly, the tip of his ears going bright red with embarrassment.

"What?"

"Forget it," Kit replied, his voice thick with mortification. "It's nothing."

Nita raised her eyebrows slowly, her silvery eyes darkened with confusion as she moved her gaze to lie on Ponch again. The black mongrel was now chasing his own tail and chattering hyperactively about chicken.

"So…" Nita let the word trail off, and she cursed her own ineptness.

"I guess I should say thank you for Dari," Kit said eventually, breaking the awkward silence.

Nita turned to Kit again, her curiosity beating her sudden ineptitude at making a decent conversation with her best friend. "Huh?"

Kit grinned. "Showing the usual Nita level of understanding." Nita scowled. "I was at the mall yesterday when I ran into her, at Starbucks. They were giving away free samples of vanilla coffee. I did wonder why she asked what Ponch's favourite biscuits were, though…"

Nita frowned in concentration before gaping at him in astonishment. "What? But she lied… Aw, man, am I going to give her a talking to when I get home… Doesn't she know how dangerous lying is, even when you're not speaking in the Speech? This is just like her, taking it fast and recklessly on the big things as well as the small things --"

"Hey, slow down." Kit held up his hand to stop her babbling, and Nita blushed again, wondering if she'd ever get back to her normal colour after all the blushing and the crying. He cocked his head to one side, in thought. "Did she lie to you?"

"Yes!" Nita replied, instantly, before rethinking over what her little sister had actually said. "Well, no," Nita admitted finally, "but she made it seem as if --"

"Exactly," Kit replied, rolling his eyes. "The same way I know you do, and I do, to answer a teacher vaguely when they ask if you've done your homework or not."

"I would never lie to a teacher or not do my homework," Nita retorted, her voice laden with sarcasm before she slumped. "I didn't just miss this," she added, waving her hands round at Ponch, at the backyard, "I missed you."

If Kit was stunned by her sudden, brutal honesty he didn't show it. Instead, he turned to her and gripped her hand tightly. "Me too." Nita smiled back, feeling as if a small weight had been lifted off her shoulders, and opened her mouth to speak when a sloppy tongue licked at her elbow.

"Hey!"

_"Sorry,"_ Ponch apologised, nuzzling against her arm, _"you just forgot about me."_

_"I missed you too, Ponchlet."_

Ponch growled in his throat, a small rasping sound that told Nita he wasn't too mad at her, before pawing at Kit's knee. Kit rolled his eyes to the firmament and pulled out one biscuit before snapping the box shut firmly. _"One more only,"_ Kit admonished his dog, dropping it at his feet. Ponch pounced on it, and dragged it over to by one of the bushes, licking at the biscuit and seeming determined to make it last. Happy growling sounds emanated from his direction as Nita and Kit watched him devour the biscuit, but were soon join by a loud rumbling sound, and Nita sunk her head in her hands.

"You hungry?" Kit looked amused, and put his head to one side as he looked at Nita. Nita nodded slowly.

"I was just going to pick up a hot dog or something," she explained, patting the wallet in her pocket as if that explained everything.

Kit took a look at her, then one speculative look at the kitchen window, which was steaming up. "Mind if I come with you?" He pulled a face. "I think my tongue might burn off if I have to eat one more Indian dish."

Nita waited in the hallway, sliding on her windbreaker and tying her trainers again as she waited for Kit. Loud Japanese music floated faintly from up in Carmela's room, one of the growing signs of her addiction to Japanese anime, and Nita recognised it faintly as the theme to Lodoss Wars.

"_Well_," Nita thought with a rueful grin, "_having a psychotic sister helps sometime_…"

"_Not often_."

Nita looked upwards, startled, to see Kit looking at her with an appraising glance. Sometimes stray thoughts leaked out to your partner, and Nita shrugged. "Well it does," she defended out loud, as Kit reached for his shirt off the peg next to where Nita was stood. It was the red checked shirt he was so fond of wearing, and he pulled it on unbuttoned over the casual white t-shirt he was wearing, free of any sci-fi or anime logo or picture. Kit was pretty reliable when it came to clothes, and actions, and reactions . . . He was the stable, dependent one of the two.

_"A far stretch from last year. When did he start becoming the responsible one?"_ Nita's mind asked herself, as Kit bent down to lace up his shoes. He came up and waved a ten dollar bill in her face. Nita screwed her face up and frowned at it.

"Mom was so psyched you came over that she says I have to go out and stuff my face." Kit shrugged unremorsefully. "I don't think I care all that much."

Nita grinned. "Anything but Indian, right? I guess it would be futile to say I fancied a kebab now?"

Kit pulled a face. "Yuck. I'd rather eat that then that gunk I ate at that alien travel station." Kit held his stomach in remembrance. "I'm going to follow Peach's advice and not eat anything on an alien world until I know exactly what's in it first."

"Good idea."

Nita pushed the door open as Kit yelled a quick goodbye in Spanish, and the two exited the house, walking amicably next to each other along the sidewalk. The world was now a sullen grey, but there was still more than enough light to see by, and Nita reckoned they had about an hour before it grew dark enough to need a flashlight. If it grew that dark, both she and Kit knew the handy spell that would cause enough light to float around them and not be seen by anyone else, and Nita was confident that that much of her wizardry still worked.

They walked the sidewalk in mostly silence. Kit inquired about her studies, Nita inquired about his family, and by the time they reached the small array of local shops a mile up the road from the mall they were chatting again lightly like they used to; with small differences. Nita still had the grey flush of grief washing over her, and Kit noticed it in her mind when the casual thought or two dropped out. Kit was still obviously walking on eggshells, not wanting to ruin what they had; a temporary alliance that was shaky at best, and would hopefully not be temporary for long.

The small fast-food takeout was pretty much deserted apart from the tired looking girl behind the counter, and she took their order for two hot dogs each, some fries for Kit and a diet soda for Nita in her stride, taking their money and giving them their food after a minute or so. The tiny outlet was a struggling local place, and one Kit had been frequenting, as part of an anti-capitalization attitude. Besides, the Oath made them try and protect all Life, and for the family that owned the outlet the business was their life, and was all that was keeping them from the streets.

Kit headed out of the place first, and Nita followed him in silence to the end of the path, where a narrow bench covered in graffiti was. They sat down and nibbled at the greasy hot dogs in silence; Nita only started to speak when the hot dogs were consumed and she'd opened her diet coke.

"So, have you seen anything of Tom and Carl lately?"

Nita had missed the two Seniors too, and although they were probably less tangled in her emotions than Kit was and theoretically easier to approach, she couldn't even bring herself to visit or call them. She'd seen Carl a few weeks back, when he'd visited them to offer condolences, and to support Dairine through a sticky trial of wizardry. Some of her robots had discovered transit gating, and a couple had wandered onto the Saurian home world. Nita remembered one of the little life-forms with fondness, one Dairine had brought home and nursed to her father's amazement. Gigo, yes, that was his—it's—name.. Trust Dairine and her computer jokes.

Kit chewed on one of the lengths of fried potato. "Yes, the other day. I was having a . . ." Kit waved a fry imprecisely at Nita, and she took it and wolfed it down before he could do anything. She smiled impishly at him.

"Having a . . . what?" Nita prompted.

"Spelling problem," Kit finished, with a scowl at her interruption. They both winced at the old pun.

"What was wrong?"

Kit shrugged. "My name has changed, by a few symbols or so . . . Just the other day, I went up to Copernicus . . . To tell you the truth, I was hoping you'd be there and we could talk." He shifted uncomfortably. "Anyway… On the way up it was the same as before, mostly, but while I was up there I traced out my name, and . . . there was a new symbol, tacked onto the end."

Nita sat up. Extra symbols could be the work of the One, or of the Powers informing you of a change either in you or an upcoming change. Either way it was extremely dangerous. "So you called them?"

"Yeah," Kit said. "Tom came up. He looked a little pissed, and Carl explained later that it was because I'd interrupted one of his flashes of inspiration. He says it took Tom hours to get back into the mood for writing, and even Tom admitted it was a good thing I called him when I did." Kit shrugged, and frowned at the saltiness of the fries before continuing. "After he'd calmed down."

"Ah," Nita said lightly. "Oops."

"Oops," Kit repeated, pulling a face. "I don't know if he's forgiven me yet."

"Reminds me of the time I called him when he'd just been in the shower," Nita giggled. Kit laughed out loud, ruffling his hair impatiently with one hand.

"I guess annoying them is unavoidable at times," Kit said ruefully. "You hurt the ones you're closest to, of course . . ."

The words floated into Nita's consciousness like a heavy weight, and even she couldn't mask her look of sudden sadness quickly enough for Kit not to notice. Kit stared at her slowly, and then looked brutally annoyed with himself as he realised what he'd said.

"Neets."

Nita had to look up at his serious tone, and Kit grabbed her hand, squeezing it tightly enough to stop her from pulling away but not so tight as to stop blood flowing.

"You couldn't do anything," Kit said firmly, his dark eyes shining with emotion and honesty. "No-one ever can. This is the One's curse to life, and we can do everything we can to defeat Him but we can't stop it from happening. It sucks, I know, it all sucks so much, but we can't do anything but fight against Him so He never wins."

Nita smiled, feeling suddenly weary and slightly light-headed. "You're right," she relented.

Kit let go of her hand, and leant back, looking slightly more composed. "As I always am," he returned, lightly teasing.

Nita stuck her tongue out. "You wish." She looked suddenly thoughtful for a second. "So what happened with the symbol?"

"Symbol?"

"The extra one you found on Copernicus."

"Oh." Kit frowned, his expression suddenly dark. He bowed his head and studied the pavement. "It was from the Powers, not Him." He didn't have to say who He was; the stark image of the Lone One, in all His forms, filled Nita's head starkly, and she shook the images away forcefully.

"And?"

"I kept it," Kit replied, his tone forced.

"Did the manual have any idea what it was?"

A guilty flush covered Kit's cheeks, and he squeezed one of his hands tightly, pressing so hard his knuckles turned white. When he spoke, his voice was so quiet Nita almost couldn't hear him. "Yes."

Nita studied her friend worriedly. It seemed Kit was having some kind of internal struggle, and he opened his mouth to speak when Nita squeezed his shoulder lightly.

"You don't have to tell me," she replied softly, "and I couldn't make you lie to me."

A grateful smile flitted over Kit's face. "I will tell you, when it's time, it's just too—" Kit floundered for the right word.

"I understand," Nita broke in with a sympathetic half-smile.

"No," Kit responded, his face still dark, "I don't think you do. But it's a start." He offered her a tentative smile, and she smiled back, a little shaken by Kit's abrupt mood change and wanting to hide it. To be honest she was just so pleased that she could talk to him, and it didn't hurt so much as she'd imagined it would. _'Get back on the asymmetrical bars as soon as you fall off, Nita . . .'_

Thinking of her mother's advice, Nita pulled out her manual from her jacket. "You know, I had a dream the other night that I'd forgotten all my wizardry, but . . . I was being stupid. I think all I was scared of was losing my best friend."

Kit didn't say anything; just grinned widely at her. "I was scared too," he admitted softly, as Nita fondly flicked through the pages of her manual, feeling a small smile curve her lips when she remembered the day she'd gone to the library after receiving her manual. She'd expected a fine, or a warning, for stealing the book but the librarian hadn't remembered she'd taken it. Must have been part of the wizardry . . . Nita had thought at the time, relieved her source of knowledge wouldn't disappear or cost her $60 a year in fines. She flicked to the familiar page of the directory listings, seeing Dairine's name printed neatly above her own, with "STATUS: On hiatus (at home)" printed in the flowing script of the Speech. Flicking down to her own name, Nita felt the rush of warmth that her name was in the directory, then suddenly felt the sudden prick of fear and panic. Her mouth dry, Nita stared at the words printed under her address, and then, panicked, flicked to Kit's entry in the R section.

"Kit, did you know we were on active status?" Nita turned her gaze, eyes wide and slightly horrified, slightly edgy with that rush of anticipatory wizardry that would make a difference, however small, somewhere in the Universe, to Kit's gaze. The Hispanic teenager stared back at her, confused, and he pulled his own manual from its permanent residence at his side, to stare in horror at the directory listings.

"This was not the case an hour ago," Kit said, his voice trembling. "This is new."

"Dari's not on active," Nita said, biting her lip as she flicked back to her name again and the printed words "STATUS: On active duty" underneath, the words that had brought her to the brink of death and complete destruction of the world more than once. "She's going to be pissed."

"She's not the only one," Kit replied. "Mom's been worried her powerful _brujo_ wouldn't be able to deal with another errantry, but she might be happier knowing you're on the case too."

Nita nodded casually. "Yeah, and dad knows that this is really important . . . What with me and Dari on the job he's more than used to it by now . . . So, what do we do?"

"Go see Tom and Carl?"

"At this time of the evening?" Nita looked worried. "Doesn't Tom normally write best in the evenings?"

Kit grinned, with a tint of what Nita would almost describe as malicious. "Hey, it's not annoying unless you do it twice."

Nita rolled her eyes heavenwards, before checking her watch and their position. "It's not far to the clearing where we met," she said lightly. "We can transit from there to their backyard, ten minutes tops."

"Good idea," Kit said. "Let's go."

Dropping his paper into the garbage can by the bench, Nita crushed her can and dropped it into the aperture of the can. The metal fell with a satisfying clunk, and, running, they dashed down a few sidewalks before pushing their way through the bushes into the small concealed wood area.

Nita moved over to a large section of uncovered soil, and picked up a slightly soggy stick. Kit found one almost the same, and they began to trace the circle from memory, as they'd done it so many times. It was so routine they could easily construct it for a solo voyage in their heads, but it had been a while since they'd done any joint wizardry, and they both etched out the usual circle and the variables and constants without even discussing it. Joint wizardry was an experience that was highly individual, and was usually accompanied by a sense of adrenaline that was washed out soon with the power used. Nita bent down and scrawled out her name neatly, not wanting to get it wrong and suddenly appear in Tom and Carl's back garden with a bass voice and only one leg. She checked out one or two of the symbols in her manual, the ones for loss and grief, and added them with a frown. While it would have been nice to be free of the grief forever, it was not a good idea to wipe out some aspects of yourself. Changing your name like that invited the Lone One into your life forever. Getting up after four minutes of pouring over her name, Nita rubbed dirt off her knees and found herself face-to-face with Kit.

"You finished?" Kit asked, looking at the finished scrawl of her name curiously. Nita nodded.

"Swap?"

Kit nodded, and they changed position in the circle to check each other's names, a definite precaution in case any untoward symbol crept in without the caster knowing about it. Nita frowned at it carefully, wanting to keep Kit as he was, and stood up fully satisfied after two minutes. Kit was still frowning over a couple of the changes she'd made, matching the symbols up in his manual and finally coming up, satisfied, and Nita took the time to stare at the completely new symbol on the end of Kit's neatly structured name. It was almost like a triangle, with an X symbol on the top and a curly swirl through the middle. She didn't have much time to contemplate it though, and pushed it guiltily out of her mind. She shouldn't have looked at it so closely, Kit obviously felt it was a private thing and he would tell her when he was ready.

"We ready to go?" Kit asked, more for the ritual of the saying of the words than the necessity of saying them. Nita nodded, and Kit leant over, scrawling the curves of the eight-shaped Wizard's knot. They looked at each other, and, holding onto each other's arms for support started the spell. It gathered up power around them, and they spoke the words faster and faster, in perfect union, their voices raising and circling them in a powerful unison of their power, then they suddenly disappeared. No sign of their presence there remained apart from a couple of footprints leading into the clearing from the bush, and even they disappeared an hour later, when in the safety of darkness rain washed the footprints away.


	2. If Only Tears...

**Dancing on the Sky**

**Part One - "Grid of Misery"**

_Chapter Two_ - "If Only Tears Could Bring You Back

Author: Mizzy

E-mail: PG-13

This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by Diane Duane, and various publishers. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Summary: Grief can be a hard thing to come to terms with, sorrow can be a recalcitrant adversary, and hope is the hardest thing to find in the middle of a storm when all you can do is dance on the sky and hope for the best.

-----

Sometimes Kit wished that he'd never gotten into wizardry in the first place, that he'd taken the metaphorical '_blue pill_' instead. Moments like that, he would feel hollow like he was falling, unable to stop, and thinking _What the heck? I might as well fall all of the way_. He'd been told every wizard feels like that at some point, that events that happen are the consequence of the wizardry, not something that would have happened anyway.

It was irrational, but that was the human heart for you. Impulsive. Impetuous. Ignorant.

Times like that, he would tell himself sharply that the Lone Power would be bringing death whatever he did, whoever he was, and it tended to strengthen his resolve to fight the cause, to be who he truly was. When it came down to it, the theory of losing your wizardry and returning to a normal ignorant life was a possible notion at times, but the actuality of breaking your oath and giving it all up was something different. Kit didn't want to feel the sorrow and hollowness of a gift given up for all the wrong reasons, and that's what wizards became after giving up their power, or rejecting it in the first place - hollow shells of grief.

The only problem was when wizards became hollow shells of grief.

Kit had been desperately arguing with himself whether to approach Nita or not, but the manual said even wizards must let grief run its full course, and he knew approaching him by herself, only if she wanted to, was a big key to her coming to terms with normal life again. He remembered how she had retreated a little at Fred's death, and at Ed's and now, with her mother gone… Nita wasn't so much retreating from herself, but running at full pelt away.

The trouble was, when Nita wasn't there, he was worried. He scared himself half to death most of the time nowadays, and covered it up by sticking to a strict routine. Sometimes dependency and consistency were what people needed, and was what Nita had needed right now. Something stable that wouldn't change.

He wouldn't change. He wouldn't frighten her off by doing something 'out of character' or reckless.

No matter how much he wanted to.

When Nita had shown up on his doorstep, Kit had again been worried; not so much for Nita's well-being this time, but for their partnership. If she rejected it, like he'd been so scared she would after the sullen cloud of grief that welled around her uncontrollably, he knew he'd crumple and be destroyed too.

It scared him how much he depended on her being there.

He had no need to worry. Despite her obvious internal struggles as to whether _he _would accept her again, (which had surprised Kit greatly, although he hadn't shown it outwardly), Nita had come, and now, beyond anything he could have imagined, they were on active status and finally doing some wizardry together.

It was just as he remembered. Their cadence, tone, pitch and speed had matched perfectly, but somewhere in their calculations they'd been minutely off, as Kit didn't remember setting the point of arrival so he'd arrive with a splash in the stucco koi pool, with Nita standing by it, perfectly dry, and hiding her face behind her hand as she giggled.

He struggled out of it with a scowl, and Nita graciously spoke the few words that would dry his clothes off, but he was left with his hair plastered to his head. He also pulled a few things out of his hair that he did _not _want to even think about.

Kit glowered at his partner. "What was that for?"

"Sorry," Nita said lightly, unable to keep the grin off her face. "You were just so intently checking over my name, I couldn't resist changing your arrival point by a meter or two."

Kit scowled, but didn't say anything, merely shaking his head to dry his hair a bit and remorselessly splashing Nita as he did so. Nita pulled a face, and stepped back, but didn't try anything retaliatory. Kit cast a glance around them finally, frowning a little.

"What's wrong?" Nita put her head to one side and stared at Kit.

Kit took a long look at the garden, then back at the house.

"I don't know, but I think something is terribly wrong." Kit said, biting his lip while Nita shrugged her shoulders at him. "There's nothing in the garden," he explained finally. Nita blinked at him confusedly. "_Honestly, _Neets, you'd think you hadn't been here for a year. There are no animals here."

Nita's mouth slowly dropped open and she shut it quickly. "Serious," she said lightly. Kit nodded, and jogged lightly up to the back door, rapping on it with his knuckles. He stepped back, arms folded over his chest, and turned his head to see Nita staring at the door quizzically. He tapped his foot for a second, and was just about to try again when the door clicked open and the familiar face of Tom Swale appeared at the door. He blinked at them for a second, looking incredibly tired and frustrated, and Kit worried that he'd interrupted him in the middle of more inspiration when he noticed the man's face was a little reddened, as if he'd been crying.

Not judging anything at all, Kit exchanged a quick glance with Nita, and turned to Tom. "Uh… we're here on errantry, and we greet you," Kit said, feeling a little stupid, until Tom straightened up and looked a tiny bit happier.

"You'd better come in," Tom said quickly, his gaze flicking to Nita before he stood back and let them both in.

Kit followed Tom, feeling Nita follow and close the door behind her, and they followed Tom into the large living room of the house Tom shared with his wizardry partner Carl. Tom sank into one of the worn-looking sofas, and Nita and Kit sat gingerly on the arm chairs facing him. Nita found it hard not to feel scared. She'd never seen Tom looking anything like this before. Normally he was so upbeat, so on top of the game…

"You two are on active?"

The abrupt question startled Kit, and he nodded. "Yes. Sometime in this last hour."

Tom's shoulders visibly sagged, and he looked at them with a weary, empty gaze that made Nita feel like crying again. She fought back the tears that were always, somehow, on the brink of falling. "I see," he said eventually. His voice quieted so much that the two strained to hear him. "I guess They thought you were the ones best suited to find him, I mean, with you two working together again, it's a relief and—"

"Him?" Nita broke in, interrupted Tom's apparent babbling. Nita was officially freaked now, she'd never seen Tom so flustered and out of control.

Kit put one hand on her arm to stop her from saying anything more, and Nita frowned at Kit in incomprehension. Kit nodded slowly at her as she got what had happened, and she felt the spinning sensation of falling again.

"What happened to Carl, Tom?" Kit's voice was firm but gentle, and Nita caught a hint of wizardry in his tone as well. He was obviously thinking through the words and structure of the spell, and she caught the slight tension being released. Tom leaned back a little on the seat, his entire posture relaxing just that little bit. Tom must be _seriously _out of action if he didn't even reprimand Kit for the use of wizardry on a Senior.

"He's gone." Tom looked as if he himself couldn't believe the words. "I.. I… just woke up this morning, came down, expecting him to be bashing up the toaster, or breaking the cooker, and he… wasn't there."

Nita's head span at the implication of the words, and she flicked open her manual to Carl's entry, and lump forming heavy in her chest at the words next to his Status. _Missing…_

Tom looked off into the distance, at some unfixed point above their heads and he struggled to speak for a moment; finally looking down and again and fixing them with a pleading look. "You have to find him, you have to, and you're the ones chosen for this… I wish . . . But . . ." He looked away again. "I'm obviously not right for this job… This is all my _fault…_ If I was just that little bit stronger, I'd be able to find him, stop him from disappearing, I'd --"

"There wasn't anything you could do," Nita broke in firmly, her tone strident and unyielding, and Tom stopped, staring at her in amazement. "We'll find him. I promise. If it was Kit or I that were missing, I know, if you and Carl were the ones on errand to find us, I know you would move heaven and earth to find us. You have to know we'd do the same."

There was a muted silence in the room as Tom looked gratefully at Nita, his face still tensed up with the sudden grief and fear.

"Do you have . . . any idea where he could be?" Kit asked gingerly, not wanting to upset the normally-level-headed writer and pillar of the community.

Tom frowned in recollection, and Kit was still unnerved by the sight of someone he'd thought could be unruffled through anything, suddenly devastated by his wizardry partner going missing. He abruptly wondered how he'd react if Nita had ever gone missing, and swallowed the thought suddenly. By the look in Nita's eyes, she'd had the same thought, and the thought scared both of them. Nita found herself flicking to the directory again, going to Tom's entry this time, and feeling a different kind of sadness flooding her mind when she saw that his status was _Senior, inactive_. It seemed to be an eternity when she'd felt sadness other than the dragging ache she'd been carrying since she'd realized she couldn't do what the Lone Power offered, and it gave a spark of more life to her emotions. Pain came in all shapes and colors, and it seemed she wasn't color-blind to pain as much as she'd thought she was.

"No."

"Right." Kit folded his hands, business-like, in front of him; resting them on top of his manual. "Starting tonight, I'm going to do some tracking, see if I can track down where he's been. Neets, will you take with Dari? She may not be active, but she'll have contacts. Maybe, if he's been anywhere in Europe, Aunt Annie can help." Kit didn't smile or anything, but the sudden impish look dancing in his eyes warmed Nita again. They did seem to share their relatives still, even if some of their friends weren't inclusive in the deal. "We'll be back tomorrow, about lunch time, with what we've got so far."

"We'll be back with the info _and _pizza," Nita added, sharing a quick glance with Kit. "You like Pepperoni?"

Tom pulled a face. "I don't really feel like eating --" he started. Kit frowned.

"We'll stop that attitude right there," Kit responded. "I'll send over some bagels in the morning. And if I find you've given them to your dogs, I won't be happy… And Carl will kick your ass around a bit too, if he finds out you tried to starve yourself."

"I haven't been starv—" Tom started, then flushed guiltily as Nita looked archly at the uneaten sandwiches on the table. "Sorry. I've been a little preoccupied," he defended. He bit his lip and looked away. "If you _must _bring pizza, meetza. And none of that thin, crispy Italian stuff."

Nita grinned. "Deep dish it is."

Kit tried to keep his face straight, but was still too stunned in the entirety of the thing. '_Carl missing… Even the _thought _of Nita_ _missing makes my flesh crawl, and we're nowhere as close as Tom and Carl…'_

"Right," Kit said, finally deciding. "You're going to hate me in the morning, but I need to do this, Tom." Nita felt again the hum of wizardry in the air, and she silently added a little of her own power to Kit's buzz of activity. "Sleep well."

Tom didn't even have time to fight it. Kit let the spell go, and Tom gracelessly fell in a heap on the sofa, asleep.

"_Kit!_" Nita exclaimed in shock, as Kit got up and pulled a blanket over the sleeping wizard.

"He needs the sleep. I _know _interfering with sleep patterns isn't good, but I think he needs one dreamless night of sleep to get things into perspective," Kit explained, hands akimbo as he looked down worriedly at Tom. "I think we'd better get home before it starts getting light again."

Nita frowned again, confused at Kit's word, before she glanced out the window and into the sky above, stretching and swirling away in a maelstrom of emptiness dotted with thousands specks of lights… '_Only it isn't empty,' _Nita thought with wonder, '_it's filled with billions of lifeforms, each trying to survive and keep going without drowning in sorrow and grief at the entropy that plagues life.' _

_'It doesn't make you feel so alone,' _a voice inside her head added, and Nita blinked, knowing it wasn't her own thought. She turned, wide-eyed, to look at Kit, and realized it was him speaking inside her head.

"I hadn't realized I'd thought it '_out-loud_'," Nita said, with a small blush flooding her cheeks again.

Kit shrugged ruefully. "Sometimes you can't help it. Like when you were in Ireland --"

Nita felt the full flood of embarrassment then. "Hey, _you _were the one that peeked, mister," she said, desperately trying to cover up her own awkwardness. "Besides, I don't even know if what was happening was _me, _or the Powers interfering… It was a very confusing time!"

Kit didn't respond immediately, and Nita felt a small spike of emotion coming from him which was gone too quickly for to analyze. "You didn't seem all that confused to me," he said finally, prompting Nita to slap his arm lightly.

"Yeah, right," Nita responded in disbelief. "Whatever you say, El Niño."

Kit flushed in mortification. "I thought you said you weren't going to call me that again!"

"No, _you _said I wasn't," Nita replied, raising her eyebrows and ducking backwards and Kit made to mock-punch her. He finally held up both of his hands in a defensive sign of a truce.

"I'll notify you if I get hold of something useful," Kit said. "See you here, in the morning, seven-ish?"

Nita pulled a face at the time. "I guess. It _is _a school day, but…" She sighed, and dropped her arms to her sides. "OK. Unless something else comes up, and I'll get in contact." Feeling the faint tension in the room again, Nita watched as Kit waved and disappeared with a soft pop. Sighing, she crossed her arms over her stomach, and cast a glance back to Tom, who was in a heap on the sofa. Is _this _where depending on your partner too much got you?

Nita considered the thought, then dropped it. The two didn't need to depend on each other for their wizardry - both were strong enough to be Seniors on their own. The fact they were chosen together wasn't so much their _wizardry _required, it was the _human _side that needed. She felt herself uncomfortably paralleling her dad and Tom right at this moment, and felt a bitter flash of jealousy. '_At least Tom knows Carl will come back, he's not permanently… gone…_'

That treacherous thought made a tiny bit of her brain rarely heard pipe up. '_But Tom doesn't know if Carl is ever coming back or not… All he knows it that, when he wakes up, Carl won't be there.'_

Feeling a stony shiver course through her, Nita took a deep breath and irrationally tried to pull away from the sharp thoughts in her mind, mingling together and causing havoc. This was all bigger than she was, much, much bigger . . . Feeling tears spill down her cheeks relentlessly, she let them fall, just this once knowing she wasn't alone in her pain, and, for once, seeing a light at the end of the very long tunnel of her own sorrow.

When the hot flood had stopped burning her cheeks and splashing on the carpet, Nita rubbed her eyes with her sleeve, and tried to get herself into gear. This was what her wizardry could be used for. For Life's sake. Just like the oath said. She wouldn't let others suffer the same pain as her for long if she could help it.

Summoning up her strength, Nita formulated the spell in her mind and let go.

Dairine was used to strange occurrences in her life. _Dawson Creek _getting a new series, even though it positively smelt of something pulled out in a Saurian's rectal examination. _Boy bands _still being so popular. The new _Star Wars _films sucking. '_Well,_' Dairine added absent-mindedly, '_except Yoda.' _

One of her greatest ambitions in life was to get a light saber, at least a toy one, but although she left plenty of hints at Christmas time and around her birthday, one never materialized.

She wasn't particularly surprised about that too, come to think about it.

She _had _been shocked that she had given wizardry. She had wanted it _so _much, ever since Nita and Kit had let her know it was real, it was alive, it actually happened… Nothing much after that surprised her.

Well, her Aunt Annie and a familiar-looking boy just appearing in the living room as she was carrying through a large bowl of bacon-flavored chips through to watch _The Cosby Show _surprised her, causing her to spill the chips to the floor, but then, it wasn't an everyday occurrence.

After stuttering, Dairine had muttered a few words and the chips flipped back up into the bowl. Her learning the speech manually had been Nita's idea a couple of weeks ago, something Dairine suspected her sister thought she could distract her with, but it had come in handy. Especially since that conversation she'd had with a squirrel which convinced it to stop chewing at her window sill . . .

The second strange occurrence was Nita, appearing in, flushed, about a minute after her Aunt and the kid arrived. Now Dairine was stunned. Stunned into complete silence, an event which had only happened three times to date so far.

Nita stood there, looking from her sister, to her Aunt and to the long-haired teenager standing next to her, and she felt her mouth drop open. "Wha—how—Auntie Annie? Ronan?"

"And, here's Nita, showing her usual level of articulacy," Dairine broke in, finally finding her tongue and putting to the chips to one side so she could bounce and hug her Auntie. Nita watched the embrace, half in disbelief, half in amusement, before feeling her face flush queerly when she noticed Ronan hanging there silently, hands in his pocket and doing what only Nita could describe as 'brooding.'

"Auntie Annie," Nita said quickly, feeling a little winded. Annie looked at her, then quickly pushed forwards to support Nita. Feeling faint, Nita dropped to the couch, and Dairine and Annie were holding her by the elbows before she realized what had happened. "Sorry. Two big transits in one day after barely doing anything. I'll be fine."

Annie frowned back at her, stormy grey eyes clouded with thought.

"So, why you here, anyway?"

Nita looked at Dairine sharply. Her smart brat of a sister still didn't have the _tact _thing down, yet.

"I don't know." Annie looked up at her youngest niece, and ruffled Dairine's hair a little. Dairine scowled, but she didn't move away. "I was just told we were needed here."

"Well, I don't see why," Dairine declared, before looking sharply at Nita and groaning. "Oh_ man," _Dairine said, looking at Nita's expression and turning around. Ignoring her chips completely, she clicked her fingers and a scuttling sound was heard. Dairine smiled tolerantly as her laptop crawled up the armchair and into her hands, and she flipped up the screen, fingers sliding gracefully over the keyboard. "_That's not fair!_"

Nita pulled a wry face, while Annie looked confused.

"What's not fair?" Annie straightened, and Nita felt a little unsteady again, but another hand kept her steady. She risked a small glance to see Ronan supporting her left elbow, and felt uncomfortably stupid again. With Kit it was easy to say something even _while _feeling mortified, how come she went into a jumbled heap whenever Ronan was there?

"She's not on errantry, we are," Nita said quickly, pulling away from her thoughts and feeling more weary than before. Dairine narrowed her eyes at Nita in disappointment. "Well, you _did _overwork yourself rescuing GIGO and the crew…"

"'Spose," Dairine said, a little disgruntled as she collapsed into the chair and began scanning through some of the new documents that had helpfully popped up on Spot's screen.

"What's wrong, Nita?"

These were the first words Ronan had said since his arrival, and the familiar throaty Irish accent made Nita a little dizzy again, although it could have been her tiredness. Annie dropped back to sit down next to Nita, and took her niece's hand supportively.

"It's Carl."

She had no opportunity to say the rest of her statement straight away. Dairine was on her feet, eyes blazing.

"What's happened to Carl?"

"He's… missing…" Nita explained, shrugging helplessly and slumping on the seat. The firm pressure of Ronan's grip stopped, and he moved his arm away, looking from one Callahan to the other and getting more confused by the other.

"_Missing?_" Dairine shrieked, her hands flying over the keyboard confidently, and her face paled as she brought up the directory. "_Crap._"

"Dairine, language," Nita warned, more of a reflex action than of a repulsion at her sister's language. Having frequently used words worse than that, it would have been a bit hypocritical to actually mean it.

Dairine pulled a sulky face. "I can't _believe _I'm still on hiatus," she muttered sourly, scrolling to the other entries in the directory. "For this case, though . . . Ronan, Annie, Nita, Kit . . . You're the only _four _on errantry?" Her tone softened immediately, and she sat, muted, seeming somewhat smaller than she actually was. Considering Dairine's close-to-Yoda sizing, (_and close-to-Yoda power, come to think of it, _Nita thought ruefully) this was quite a feat. "Tom isn't on errantry?"

Nita shook her head slowly.

"This must be killing him." Dairine, sharp as ever, understood the whole situation better than most, and sunk her face into her hands. "_Powers . . ._"

Annie's face was in shadow, and she looked troubled. "With one Senior out of action, we can't lose another one . . . _Damn . . ._"

"So, no one has any idea where he is?" Ronan frowned, shifting uncomfortably. Nita shook her head. "I suppose we should do some investigating . . ."

"Kit's doing some scans, some wizardry, to see what he can find that way," Nita offered.

Ronan pulled a wry face. "I'm not used to being able to do as much as you need to straight away," he said awkwardly. "I meant more asking neighbors if they'd seen them, go to his place of work and ask around…"

"Good idea." Annie looked around at the living room. "Where's—"

"Dad's upstairs," Dairine offered, "pretending to sleep so I won't keep plastering cocoa onto him."

"Don't you mean so you won't keep _giving _him cocoa?" Nita asked, curiously, as Annie excused herself to go see her brother.

Dairine winced. "I'm sure that was what I _meant _to do, but after I spilled the first two, he wasn't exactly enthusiastic." She frowned at her sister, then flickered a glance to Ronan, before getting to her feet and yawning exaggeratedly. "Well, I'm beat. I'm going to bed, 'k? Night, Neets."

Before Nita could say anything, Dairine had walked out of the room, Spot scuttling after her furiously.

Nita turned back to Ronan with a shrug, taking in the teenager nervously. He'd grown some more, and was taller than even Kit was after his growth spurt. His hair was just as unmanageable, and his clothes sense hadn't changed much either. She floundered for something to say, a little winded by his presence, and was saved by her stomach growling at her. Ronan hid a smile behind his hand, and Nita excused herself quickly to the kitchen to grab the casserole Dairine had saved for her. Picking up the oven gloves, she lifted up the plate keeping warm in the oven and slid it onto one of the mats on the table. Turning to search for a fork or something, Nita came face to face with Ronan and almost fell over in shock.

"Did I scare you?" Ronan leant back against one of the counters, arms folded and an amused grin on his face. Nita flushed and muttered something unintelligible, turning away and pulling a drawer open to get a fork out.

"A little," Nita returned, unsure of what to say. He unnerved her all the time. Nita felt a shock as she realized exactly _why _she'd been… _attracted_… to him in the first place. He _did _shock her, he wasn't like anyone else she'd ever met, and maybe… Maybe she liked being caught off-guard… "Uh, did you want something to eat?"

Ronan shook his head. "No. I'm not all that hungry. It's like two in the morning for me still."

Nita sat at the table, pulling the edge of the mat to bring the food closer. The two transit spells had used all of the energy she'd gotten from the hotdogs, and she realized as she smelled in the thick, meaty smell of the casserole that she was starving. "Oops. Forgot the time difference." Nita rolled her eyes at her own stupidity, and took a forkful of the gravy and meat meal. Sniffing at it cautiously, she chewed on the meat and watched as Ronan took the dining room chair opposite her.

"Yeah." Ronan folded his hands on the table, playing with the pepper shaker idly. "This is my second time on errantry."

Nita looked up from her food, and her mouth dropped open. "_Really?_" Ronan nodded, and Nita shook herself sharply. With the overlays, much wizardry was impossible, so it was more likely for wizards in less cluttered wizardry areas to get more wizardly errands to run for the Powers.

"If you're here, you're needed." Nita pulled herself together enough to say the wizardry cliché, and then looked down at her meal, studying it and suddenly not feeling hungry any more. "I can't believe this is happening… It must hurt Tom so _much _. . ." she managed to say before feeling her eyes prick with tears. '_Again? How many times must this happen . . . and now . . .'_

Ronan watched her quietly, as tears began to leak out from Nita's eyes again and splash unhindered onto the table below. In a typical spontaneous move, he slid round the table before enveloping Nita in a sharp hug. Instead of pulling away, Nita collapsed, a tearful wreck in her own distress. It might as well have been a complete stranger holding onto her, stopping her from falling, all she could feel was that the sorrow building up inside her had burst like a dam, and she couldn't stop it. She didn't even notice when Kit appeared with a soft _pop! _in the kitchen, looking worried.

Ronan noticed, though, and looked up at Kit with a quiet, serious expression that made Kit stop in surprise. Kit glanced at Nita, an uncontrollable mass of tears and anguish, and a small frown came on his face before he realized Nita was actually comfortable. Safe. Something else no one else could apparently give her. Swallowing down the lump in his throat, Kit offered Ronan a tentative smile of peace and a nod, all the while feeling like his heart was going to break, and Ronan understood him in that second. He nodded at Kit, grateful for Kit stepping back and going for Nita's best interests, despite how much it hurt him in the process. Even though he apparently had Kit's approval, though, Ronan was more than a little disturbed and shaken—about what had happened to him, to Nita, to them all in the long struggle—and how much Nita had been destroyed. He wondered if he was the right one who could bring her back, and in that moment realized that—if Kit's judgment of the situation was too seriously clouded with—and Ronan laughed inwardly at how badly the word was used to describe it—_concern _for his wizardry partner—then he would step back. For Nita. From the look in Kit's eyes at that moment, the dark intense gaze filled with an anguish and pain that soared to the heights Nita's sorrow and grief did, then that was what they were both there for. For Nita, and for Tom, and for all them.

_For Life's sake . . ._

Nita didn't seem to show any sign of stopping any time soon, and Ronan wondered if he'd have to give up his claim to fight for Nita's affection so early in the game. '_Or maybe I'm already out of the game . . .'_ Shaking off the thought, he jerked his head, indicating for Kit to take over. Surprised, Kit moved over, sliding into the chair and letting Nita collapse against him, while Ronan stalked over to the sink and splashed himself with water. Turning, he saw Kit holding Nita tightly, by her shoulder and elbow, holding her like she was going to escape and fly away if he let go.

"_Nita_."

Nita heard the soft word spoken through her thoughts, and felt someone else's sleeve wiping her tears away and she knew then it was Kit who had taken over. For a second she lay still, resting her head against his shoulder, before sitting up and feeling infinitely more stupid than she had before as she glanced over at Ronan. He was casually leaning against the table, and looking more than a little ruffled. Looking back at Kit apologetically, she noticed she'd soaked his shirt through.

"Sorry about the . . . wet . . ." Nita mumbled.

"Not a problem," Kit said with a grin, pushing himself to his feet and standing next to the sink.

Nita sighed in relief, and cast an apologetic glance to Ronan.

"I can't seem to stop crying nowadays. I'm sorry you two have to see it."

"Not a problem," Ronan replied, echoing Kit. "I'd rather be here than not."

Nita smiled weakly up at Ronan, then felt Kit's gaze on her. Flicking a glance at her partner, she was more than surprised when Kit and Ronan looked at each other, briefly knowing and understanding each other perfectly.

Kit started suddenly, looking back at Nita to see her looking curiously from him to Ronan, a little bewildered and still tired. "I can't stay long," he said quickly. "Mama's expecting me home soon, and she saved me some _Korma_." Kit pulled a small face and Nita wrinkled her nose in sympathy. "I did a scan for him, and I thought you should know."

"Know what?"

Kit looked up to see Dairine in the doorway; Annie holding the youngest Callahan wizard by the shoulders protectively.

"I had the circle half completed for a scan, in a safety pocket somewhere, just in case I'd need it, one of this solar system. And—" He shifted uncomfortably.

"And?" Nita prompted, her heart in her throat, and she felt like crying again only there weren't any more tears to come. She felt Ronan come sit next to her again, rather than seeing it, and felt that rush of insecurity again. She speculated distractedly whether it was the anxiety she felt around him that was what she craved, or if she was running from her own normal stability, before focusing back on the case in hand.

Kit shuffled again.

"And—" He took a deep breath. "Carl isn't in it. Anywhere."

"But . . ." Nita frowned. "He's probably in another dimension, or galaxy, or . . ."

Kit cut her off abruptly. "No, that's not what I mean. I mean—it says Carl has _never_ even _been _in this solar system."


	3. Stay With Me...

**Dancing on the Sky**

**Part One - "Grid of Misery"**

_Chapter Three_ - "Stay With Me

Author: Mizzy

E-mail: PG-13

This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by Diane Duane, and various publishers. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Summary: Grief can be a hard thing to come to terms with, sorrow can be a recalcitrant adversary, and hope is the hardest thing to find in the middle of a storm when all you can do is dance on the sky and hope for the best.

Warning: Don't try and drink lemonade up your nose. splutters It _hurts_. whimpers

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"You've got to be kidding."

Somehow, Kit wasn't surprised when those words came from Ronan, his accent twisting the light statement of shock and incredulity until Kit wasn't even sure if Ronan meant to be sarcastic or was genuinely disbelieving him.

"I'm not," Kit replied, semi-defensively, and looked at Dairine for support. The tiny wizard, dwarfed in her large T-shirt, just shrugged back; her eyes mirroring Ronan's same disbelief.

"Are you sure?"

Kit turned in disbelief to see Nita questioning him, and, trying to keep his temper, he just nodded. "It's like . . . all memory of him is being wiped out slowly. I mean, check your manual . . . Any mention of his name is just . . ." Kit floundered for the right word. "_Going._ Someone is taking great care to wipe all mention of him, every whisper of him, from here."  
Annie broke in, business-like, moving to stand in the center of the room, next to the fridge-freezer combo. '_Right where Nita's mom usually stood when she was in business-mode,'_ Kit thought with a thud, and from the lost look in Nita's eyes that echoed in Dairine's own, the same thought was brushing through their minds too. Ronan noticed Nita's sudden discomfort, and frowned, and Kit felt a rush of smugness that he knew Nita better which he immediately regretted. '_I might know more, but he knows the side of Nita I will never know . . ._'

Annoyed at his own jealousy, Kit didn't even notice Nita's gaze snapping to him, and her gaze turn shrewd and calculating. He noticed Nita flicking through her manual as Annie spoke, though, and jumped to the wrong conclusion that she was trying to prove him wrong. '_I know I'm right, I worked _hours _on that scanning spell just in case it was needed one day . . . Or maybe I'm wrong, and I just don't want to admit it . . . Tom was right, that symbol should have been added to the end of my name _ages _ago . . ._" Furious at himself, Kit listened to Annie's words, slumping against the wall in defeat.

"Right. This is what we're going to do. Nita, Dairine, Ronan - we're going to get some _sleep, _and Kit, you can come back in the morning. Kit—I'm going to borrow the car and drive you home. You're not up to a transit spell, and—", Annie smiled quickly, a twisted grin that made Kit remember why he had envied Nita having Annie as a relative last time they'd met, "maybe I can get you out of eating that Indian food too."

Kit smiled thankfully at Annie, and frowned at the implication that he was too weak to do wizardry. Dairine edged him a look, her face impassive but glance knowing, and Kit nodded slightly at her so no one else would notice. He'd have to remember Ronan and Annie came from somewhere where wizardry couldn't be used so easily, so freely, and that they might not exactly understand how American wizards could build up their magical and physical stamina more easily. "Thank you," Kit said politely, after another disapproving glare from Dairine.

Annie nodded. "I'll go get the keys. Dairine, maybe you should get up to bed." Dairine looked like she was going to protest. "_Now_. You may not be on errantry, but I could still do with some research help." Annie glared at Dairine, before moving through the door, obviously going to find the keys to the Callahan-mobile, the '99 Fiat Punto nestled in their driveway.

Dairine frowned, rolled her eyes to the ceiling and disappeared off with a muttered goodbye. As she passed Kit on her way through to the hallway, she nudged him and Kit turned to her, eyebrows arched in incomprehension. Dairine looked over pointedly to where Nita and Ronan were sat; Nita flicking through her manual, Ronan with his hand easily on her shoulder and chatting gently to her.

"You know," Dairine said quietly, not wanting to alert Ronan and Nita on the subject of her discussion matter, "I don't really trust him either."

Kit turned to her, his eyes widening. "Well, I guess he _is _after your sister . . ."

Dairine put her head to one side, looking at Kit with such a shrewd expression that Kit got again the impression that someone had stuck a very old head onto Dairine's very young shoulders. '_Wisdom and more power than all of us . . . What a combination.'_ "I don't think that's what irks me most about him. More the fact that he's where _you _should be."

"Huh?"

Kit seemed to be running out of coherent words, and Dairine gave him a knowing look before ducking lightly out of the room; not wanting to experience her Auntie's wrath for not being in bed already.

"Kit?" Annie's head popped around the door, and he started to move out of the room, trying to discretely not look at where Nita and Ronan were sitting. Unfortunately Nita caught onto him, and leapt out of her seat, grabbing onto his sleeve as she bent around Ronan's chair.

"_Jealousy?_"

Annie waited by the door, arms folded, but knowing enough to not let Kit escape without an explanation as to what Nita was confronting him about.

Kit stared back, feeling Ronan looking at him with a quiet determination, and Nita looking at him with a confused expression, which almost screamed _I don't know you any more_.

"You looked," Kit said, feeling betrayed as he held onto the doorknob.

"When I checked your name. I know I shouldn't have looked, but I…" Nita trailed off.  
Kit looked undecided for a moment. "I suppose it _was _a bit of a temptation . . ." He put his head to one side, and Nita let go of him, standing behind Ronan as he sat in the chair. "But you're not exactly right." He moved away from the doorway, and started to leave.

"Then what is it?" Nita pressed, pushing past Ronan and standing in the doorway. Kit refused to turn around; instead he stilled. He knew what he would see if he turned around, and he didn't want that pain. Nita would be standing there, confused as to what her best friend was hiding from him, not having the support of Ronan, standing small and empty in the doorway and feeling alone. '_She shouldn't have to feel alone . . . Why must I do this to her? Maybe it would be better if I just disappeared out of her life, make her think something's happened to me . . . Perhaps it would be easier on all of us . . .'_

Kit steeled himself, and only Annie could see the pained expression on his face as he deliberated on how to phrase it.

"Anguish."

One word, breathed out so lightly that Nita wondered lately if she'd even heard it or if the word was mirrored so deeply in her own soul she didn't have to, but she did feel the emotion behind it and physically reeled backwards from it. Hands held her steady from behind, firm on her hips, but it wouldn't have mattered if the Lone Power Himself was holding her in his death-grip right then.

All she could do was just feel Kit's torment that echoed hers so deeply that she hadn't even known. All she could do was curse her own blindness, her own selfishness to think she was the only one who hurt. All she could do was look, blindly, to see Kit walk away; still not turning around, and disappearing off outside to go home.

Turning, she buried her head in the shoulder of the person holding her, and started to cry again; huge sobs that racked her body and left her weakened. Shivering she lifted her head to meet the understanding gaze of her father. He looked disheveled, like he'd just gotten up, and looked so much like Nita felt inside that she wanted to scream, she wanted to fall forever, she wanted it all to go away . . .

Saying nothing, Nita's father wrapped his arms around her, and burrowed his head into her neck, and Nita did the same; for a long hour they clung onto each other and just cried. Cried for their sorrow, their grief, and their mirrored pain, which joined them past genes and past the love they had as a family. Cried for their joint loss and cried for their future and for everyone else lost in the maelstrom of entropy, the gift and the curse of the Lone Power.

Uncovering his face with his hands, Kit peeked out of the window, his face ashen. Turning to Annie in disbelief he stared at her.

"That," Kit said, "was . . . a miracle."

Frowning, Annie stared at her young charge and his discomfiture. "A miracle?"

Kit unbuckled the seatbelt, and pushed the door open, almost falling to the pavement in his shock. "Annie?" Kit said, while Nita and Dairine's Auntie got out the driver's seat and moved to join him on the pavement. "It's a miracle we're _alive_."

Annie looked at Kit, then at the car, and then at the rest of the cars on the same side of the road. They were all pointing _towards _the car rather than in the same direction. She felt her face heat up. "I drove on the wrong side of the road, didn't I?" Mortified, Annie quickly apologized to Kit. "Sorry."

"It's all right. Good thing it's so late . . ." Kit looked across the street, to where his house was. The tiny suburban house was darkened except for one light on, and Kit winced as he realized it was the living room light. _'Oops._'

Annie nodded, and moved to the back of the gleaming white car to cross the road. Kit followed her, his hands in his pockets, and trod up the leaf-strewn path to his front door. Annie knocked politely on the door, and it wasn't long before the door burst open, and an irate looking women stood in the doorway. She frowned confusedly at Annie, then peeked around her to look at Kit, and managed to look relieved but even more irate at the same time.

"Mama, sorry I was so long, I was out on business," Kit breathed quickly, holding up his manual apologetically. Mrs. Rodriguez, every inch the nurse, pulled him in and started to make sure he was all right. Annie stood politely in the hallway and pushed the door shut.

"Mama, this is Annie Callahan, Nita's auntie. She's come all the way from Ireland to help us," Kit explained, nodding at Annie. "She gave me a lift home."

Kit's mother cast an appraising glance at Annie, and, finally deciding she was all right beamed at her. "I'm glad Kit gets some adult help. Goodness knows those Seniors don't do enough while our kids are on this business of theirs . . ."

"_Mama_!" Kit hissed, horrified. Annie, however, nodded her head in agreement.

"Considering the number of them, it's a wonder the Seniors manage to get to see everyone they're supposed to. We're limited to thirty five at the moment, and this dilemma has caught everyone off guard," Annie said, shrugging.

"Dilemma?"

"Carl's gone missing, mama," Kit elucidated. "Tom's out of his mind with worry, and . . . There's no sign of him whatsoever."

"Oh _no_!" Kit's mother looked horrified. She liked the two seniors, knowing the two of them would eat anything she came up with whenever they came around to see Kit or explain something to them, and knowing one of them was missing… Suddenly her head snapped up. "And they want _Kit _to help find a missing _Senior_? He's just a… _kid_!"

"Mama!" Fully ashamed and embarrassed Kit's cheeks flooded with humiliation and he looked to Annie for help. Annie's gaze was stern for a moment, but then softened.

"They _are _the ones with the most power after all. It's not always the amount of experience that wizards have, it's the _type _as well . . . Both Kit _and _Nita have had particular experiences no other wizard has had, and Ronan and I have had a different experience yet." Annie looked saddened. "Mrs. Rodriguez, Kit was chosen because he has the best chance for completing this assignment. It means no one else has the chance of survival and completion as Kit has. You should be comforted by this."

Mrs. Rodriguez nodded, looking at her son gently with a queer glance of love, concern and pride. "He's my boy," she added fondly, pulling Kit to her side and ruffling his hair.

"Kit has had a bit of a wearying night," Annie added, glancing at Kit for a second. "I think it would be best for him to eat something with a lot of sugar in it and then have a good night's sleep."

"Yes, of course," Kit's mother affirmed. "But—"

"I'm sure Annie would _love _to try the curry you made, mama," Kit broke in, hoping he didn't sound too frantic or desperate. Thankfully she just looked pleased.

"Come on through!" Mrs. Rodriguez offered, instead looking pleased that there was someone else to eat her cooking.

Kit smiled, kissed his mother on the cheek and grabbed a packet of M&Ms from the cupboard in the kitchen while Annie got introduced to the flaming Indian food before heading upstairs to his room. Remembering to kick his shoes up half-way up the stairs, they fell in an unruly pile next to Carmela's clunky pink high-heeled boots, and he padded up the stairs in his socks to his room. Sliding in and dropping his manual to his bed, Kit patted Ponch. The huge mongrel was lying disgruntled on his rug, his paws folded and his head resting on his paws, and the empty box of biscuits beside him; the front ripped off, unmistakably by Ponch tearing at it with his teeth. Shaking his head in quiet mirth, Kit sat down on his bed next to his manual and ripped open the M&Ms.

Chewing on them reflectively, and putting aside the yellow ones without even thinking about it, he let his free hand flick through the manual. It was quite heavy tonight, and Kit wondered why. The manual contracted and expanded to include what you needed to know then. Kit was thankful it did this—if it included everything, then the manual would be bigger than all of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Kit had seen a bookcase full of those books at his uncle's house, and had learned that the company in the UK was no longer doing them hardcopy—it was too expensive. From the number of heavy volumes and the cost of them, Kit wasn't surprised. Even the manual was moving from hardcopy to hard_ware_, Kit thought, thinking of Dairine and her laptop version.

Everything was changing. He was changing. The world was changing. Nita . . . Nita was changing too, and Kit was scared that she would change so much that they wouldn't even be partners any more.

It was possible. Kit had heard of it happening; partners growing apart in their differences so much that new partners were found. By that point, he supposed, they would both be changed so much that it wouldn't even be that much of an issue any more. In most cases, though, partners stayed together until the end; the end of their wizardry or the end of their lives, whichever came first. Partnership wasn't always synonymous with a relationship of such either. Tom and Carl had a strictly plutonic relationship, and still stayed together as partners ...

Kit though that last thought over with some careful deliberation. Neither one of them said they were involved, but then neither of them had said they _weren't_. From Tom's reaction, Kit suspected there might be more between them that they didn't let on to the public, but after years of partnership what else could really be expected?

He stopped that line of thought right there.

Maybe they were, maybe they weren't, and either way it wasn't any of his business. It was devastating on any level to lose your partner, no matter how close they were emotionally. Tom and Carl were at _least _best friends, more than that in a way that couldn't really be described, and losing that side of you must be hard to deal with. Kit thought back to how close he'd been from drifting away completely from Nita, and how close it still might be in the future, and felt a stab of pain in the region of his stomach which had nothing to do with hunger. If Nita . . . _stayed _. . . with Ronan, and Kit's mind had trouble keeping that thought without feeling dizzy, then he really couldn't see _how _he could stay her partner in the future. Maybe making her think something had happened to him was the best option after all, but then he'd have to leave his family, and his future, and . . .

Stretching his arms out to the ceiling, Kit let them drop and pushed his manual onto his bedside table. Staring at the M&Ms left, he noticed he'd pushed the yellow ones to the side and they were the only ones left. Vaguely confused for a moment, Kit remembered how much Nita liked the yellow ones the most, and how she would pick them out and push the rest aside for Dairine, or for later. Gazing sadly at them for a moment, he premeditated on what he could do and then, deliberately, pushed them back into the packet and twisted the packet closed. Slumping back on the bed, fully clothed and staring up at the ceiling, Kit lay there for a long time before his weariness claimed him for its own and for a few hours of dreamless sleep.

Nita woke up with a start, and felt a rush of confusion at her surroundings. Instead of being woken up from the light lancing through a crack in her curtains she'd just woken up naturally. '_The first time in a long, long time . . .'_ Pushing herself up into a sitting position, Nita glanced around the light-flooded room, and all the X-men posters sprawled over the walls, before realizing she'd offered to sleep on the camp-bed in Dairine's room so her aunt could have her bed. Looking up, she saw Dairine cross-legged on her own bed, Spot in front of her.

"Morning, sleepyhead," Dairine murmured without twisting her head to look at her sister.

"Morning, camper," Nita returned with a silly smile. Dairine jerked to glance at her sister this time, and looked confused.

"You're in a good mood," Dairine stated, looking surprised before looking pointedly at the camp bed. "And _you're _the camper more than anyone else in this room."

Nita pulled a face at her sister's accuracy. "Smart-ass," she countered, rolling off the camp-bed and feeling something sharp jab into her knee. Something sharp that squealed and bit her knee. "_Ow!_" Pulling her knees back and sitting with her legs pulled up against her body, Nita peered closely at her knee, where a few red marks were already raising up into bruises, before examining what had bitten her. Whatever it was was concealed under a mess of red material, one of Dairine's sweatshirts, and it wasn't long before a shiny head peered out, and wriggled out of the material. Nita stared at the turtle-like machine for a moment incredulously.

"Gigo!" It chirped, a little too sunnily. "Hello Nita," it added in the Speech.

Nita stared at Gigo furiously for a moment before glancing back at Dairine. "_Dairine_, you were supposed to send them home!"

"He missed me," Dairine returned, looking entirely ruffled. "I guess this means I don't have to hide him any more."

Something on Gigo's face crinkled upwards, and Nita assumed it was a funny sort of a smile. She felt herself smiling a little back, and frowned to stop herself. "Well, he's looking a lot better."

Dairine nodded. "To put things into terms you'd understand, on the alien homeworld they infiltrated, they picked up a 'virus.' But now they're all fitted with a 'virus' checker to get rid of any foreign viruses."

Nita nodded, just about grasping the concept. "Great."

"Auntie Annie's downstairs. You might want to go put something on so your boyfriend doesn't see your cute nightshirt," Dairine suggested. Nita looked down at her nightshirt. It was one of her favorites, a pale yellow one that fell mid-thigh, and was decorated with a large teddy bear and the word '_huggable_'. She flushed, and stood up indignantly.

"When's Kit coming over?" Nita asked instead, hands akimbo.

"Nine. That means you've got ten minutes to get changed. Scoot!"

Nita, startled by the imperative tones of her sister, nodded and stumbled out into the hallway, before she looked back at the doorway in acute speculation. Slightly frightened by the sight of Legolas pointing an arrow at her head, she turned and walked into her room; closing the door behind her and rummaging in her drawers for her clothes as she thought about what Dairine was implicating. She didn't have _any _boyfriend. '_I mean, one kiss doesn't instantly make someone your boyfriend . . .'_ she thought sullenly, as she slid her underwear on and picked the first t-shirt from her drawer. Pulling the t-shirt on, and catching her image in the mirror, she wondered if she should change. They did have company, and her worn _Save the Whales _T-shirt _was _a bit scruffy, but it reminded her so much of Ed, and the Song of the Twelve, and the relief that followed when it all mostly worked out ok . . . Scowling, and re-affirming to herself that Ronan wore scruffier clothes—as his _image—_Nita kept the shirt on, and pulled out her almost-as-worn jeans. They were pretty new; her mom had thrown out her old ones even though they did still fit—_barely—_because they were so shabby. Nita had complained at the time out of instinct—having saved the _world _in those jeans—but had been secretly glad to get new ones that didn't squeeze around the hips so much as the old ones. That was the problem with being female and hormones, Nita decided, not the sudden uncontrollable influx of power—more the growing outwards where you didn't grow outwards before.

Zipping up her flies, Nita pulled out a pair of pink faded socks to complete the _I've-just-thrown-these-clothes-on _look (which, Nita reflected, she _had _done, but if she matched everything up it would look as if she'd done it deliberately as a style choice) and sat down on her bed to pull them on. Lacing on her white and green _Nike _trainers, she got to her feet and picked up her manual; checking the clock to make sure she was done in time.

_8:54_

Feeling relieved, Nita put her hand on her bedroom door handle to open it and froze. Dairine hadn't implicated Ronan as the boyfriend at all: she'd implicated _Kit. _

"_You might want to go put something on so your boyfriend doesn't see your cute nightshirt . . . __That means you have ten minutes to get changed."_

The words floated back to her, and Nita felt that same queasy sense that she felt while walking on water. Tired, but happy, and safe; like standing on safety glass which you could bounce on like a bouncy castle.

Distinctly ruffled, and forgetting about everyone else for the moment, Nita sat with a thump on her desk chair, and flicked through her manual to a symbol-translation page. Going to the _Speech-into-symbol _section, rather than the _symbol-into-Speech _section she'd tried earlier, she glanced over the pages until coming to the curly sprawl which indicated the word _anguish._ To its right was the same symbol etched that she'd seen on Kit's name.

Perturbed, Nita stared at it softly, recognizing her mistake. The triangle on the name-symbol for jealousy was a taller isosceles triangle, and anguish was an equilateral one. That was the problem using shorthand symbols, they could be so easily mistaken . . . But why would Kit be in so much pain that he needed an extra symbol added to his name? Normally the spell picked up on your emotions and tied them into the variables; his thoughts must be really running amok to warrant a name change. Vexed, she pushed herself slowly off the bed and wandered down the hallway, lost in her own thoughts.

Kit was there when she appeared rubbing her eyes sleepily in the doorway. He was in the process of toasting bagels with Dairine, over what appeared to be a small fire hanging in the middle of nowhere. Ronan was lounged in a chair, picking idly at a charred-looking bagel and looking amused, and the milk stains on the newspaper discarded on the table was enough to indicate to Nita that had father had already eaten and gone out to work. Dairine and Kit appeared to be sniggering together about something, while Annie was behind them on the cooker, using all four hobs, apparently.

"Morning, Nita," Annie greeted, noticing her niece in the doorway. Nita smiled at her auntie, and slipped past the burning fireball in the middle of the room to peer at the cooker uncertainly. In one pans eggs were boiling, in another potatoes, in another one onions were lightly sweating in butter and soy sauce, and in the last Spam burgers were frying. Nita wrinkled her nose a little at the smell, and looked confused. Annie noticed her confusion, and nodded at the bagels. "I'm doing up the onions so that your Senior fellow can have something nice in the bagels as well as cheese. The rest is so we don't have to worry about it later. I'll just pop it in a pocket of space and we can retrieve it when we need it. Dairine tells me it will be kept quite hot if I put it in a vacuum pocket of space. I must say, I never really thought of that."

Nita raised her eyebrows and left her auntie to it, moving towards a plate of stacked up, slightly-burnt bagels, and helping herself to one. She felt a hand tap the back of her hand lightly, and came face to face with Kit grinning at her.

"Those are for Tom," Kit said, mock-sternly. From beside him, waving a barbecue fork with a bagel skewered on the end, Dairine nodded in stern agreement. Nita rolled her eyes and defiantly took a bite out of it.

"OK, you can have that one," Dairine said quickly, handing Nita a tiny plastic container and waving at the table. "Butter's on the table. Mini-cheese is in your hand."

Nita dropped it into her pocket. "No it isn't," she returned, blinking innocently at Dairine. Dairine narrowed her eyes, and waved a flaming bagel in her face. Nita stumbled backwards in a hurry to get away from her fire-wielding sibling, and wondered at Kit for letting her do it. Kit looked like he was having way too much fun with a few charred looking kebab sticks lying to a pile on the counter beside him as he skewered another bagel and started to set it on fire in the floating fireball.

Sighing, Nita dropped her bagel, now growing a little cold, onto a plate and resisted going up to toast it a bit more. Picking up a knife, she spread butter on it and unwrapped the small amount of plastic-wrapped cheese. Feeling a little weird at having such food for breakfast, she realized it was more of an early morning snack for Annie and Ronan and kept quiet. _'Besides, it's fun to get out of the routine sometimes . . .'_

Munching on the bagel, Nita watched as Dairine and Kit fought briefly over the last bagel; Dairine winning by twisting Kit's arm behind his back. Sometimes he forgot about Dairine's martial arts expertise, and Dairine used it to her advantage every time. People always dismissed her because of her size. Kit forgot about that aspect of Dairine because of all the other things he knew about her; that she was clever, could kick his ass at _Soccer Pro _easily, that she was a powerful wizard and that she liked climbing the stuffed elephants at the Natural History museum.

Giggling as Kit filched the burning bagel from Dairine's fork by convincing it that it didn't want to hold the bagel anymore, Nita watched as Kit neatly skewered the half-toasted bagel in mid air with another wooden kebab skewer, while Dairine frowned and pulled the plate of already toasted bagels to the table. Furiously buttering them, Kit finished toasting the last bagel and chewed on the dry toasted bagel reflectively as he dispelled the fireball with a few words. _'Another of the spells he keeps tucked away for regular use . . .'_ Nita noticed, as she finished on her bagel, and picked at the cheese she'd left to the side. Looking across the table, she noticed Ronan looking around himself a little bewildered, and Nita felt a rush of near-pity for him. Not only was this place a foreign country, it was probably a foreign environment to him too. She'd got the distinct impression his home life didn't have the _coziest _atmosphere of others she'd encountered. Nita had had the privilege of being in warm, welcoming households, Kit's, her own, and although at times her own had been pretty frosty it had been overall something she'd almost taken for granted. Mind you, when it got frosty, it got _frosty_. That time on the beach where Nita's parents had thought she and Kit were . . . _doing things . . ._ that they shouldn't, it had confused and mortified Nita. She and Kit were just friends, there was nothing more to it . . . Wasn't there?

Or maybe her parents had had a point, something she hadn't even picked up on.

Quieted and distinctly dazed, Nita picked at the plastic-tasting cheddar. Ronan was the one she'd shared that moment with in Ireland in the summer holidays . . . He was the one that unsettled her, put her on edge, made her life dance like it never had before . . . Was that attraction or just the _wish _for it?

Annie finished her cooking eventually, and joined them at the table, fixing up a couple of the bagels with some onion, hot meat and cheese. She opened her manual, and started to trace a transit spell on the table. Kit helped, leaning over the table from where he was sat next to Dairine, inputting the correct variables so they'd appear in Tom's kitchen. Satisfied, Annie leaned back and closed the spell with a knot, and let the spell go. The plate of bagels disappeared with a soft _pop!_ and Nita hoped they had the right coordinates. If they appeared in the middle of the street in front of anyone it might cause a bit of a shock, and Nita could almost see the headlines. _"Unidentified Flying Breakfasts: Burned bagels appear in the middle of forty-fifth street at half past nine this morning . . . Bystanders say the plate of the breakfast food landed in the middle of the road, and had come from 'nowhere.' The CIA is said to be looking into it…_"

Stifling a giggle, Nita looked up and caught Kit's glance. He was sniggering into his cold bagel, and spraying crumbs everywhere, and Nita noticed with a small sigh of contentment he'd thought the same thing.

_"Flying bagels . . ." _Kit cast over silently to Nita, and she snorted loudly. Ronan, Annie and Dairine looked at her like she'd gone crazy, and Dairine got it before the other did.

"If you two have something to say can you say it out loud and not in private?" Dairine demanded indignantly. Kit covered his face with his hands and giggled helplessly.

"_Crumbs . . ."_ Nita couldn't resist adding, laughing and holding her sides. Kit started laughing so hard he almost fell off the chair. Red-faced, he straightened his face.

"Sorry Dairine," Kit apologized. "_I wonder if McDonald would pick up the franchise . . . Flappy Meals . . ." _he added, to Nita.

Nita had to abruptly stumble off the table and to the sink, purportedly for a glass of water but to really try and stop herself from laughing. Dairine, watching her sister's shoulders shake at the sink, guessed the reason and poured her glass of water over Kit's head.

From Ronan's less-than-friendly snigger, and even Nita's giggle over at the sink, Kit decided the best option was to take it gracefully. "_What is it with you Callahan girls soaking me with water?" _Kit asked Nita, silent and furiously.

"_Maybe we just find the drowned-rat look endearing," _Nita teased.

"Auntie Annnnnie, can you stop them doing that?" Dairine pleaded with her auntie, pouting and trying out her puppy dog eyes look.

"Nita, Kit, stop that . . . You're making your guests and Dairine quite upset," Annie chided.

"_Damn, that look works every time . . ._" Nita thought to Kit furiously. Kit laughed in her head, knowing his amusement wouldn't be appreciated by Dairine.

"Sorry," Nita said instead, out loud. Kit mumbled an apology while wringing the wet bits of his shirt over Dairine. Dairine squealed and jumped back off the table.

"This is the last time I'm helping _you _when you're on errantry," Dairine sniffed, picking up the rest of her food and flouncing out of the kitchen.

Dairine's departure would have caused more fuss, but for the soft _pop! _sound, and a plate appeared on the table; covered in crumbs and a single piece of paper. Annie picked up the piece of the paper, and read the words on it. _"Thanks. Tom."_

"Sigh, more washing up," Kit moaned, picking up the plate and carrying it over to next to the sink.

"We have a dishwasher," Nita said, her tone almost chiding. "Remember?"

Kit looked from Nita to the white machine in the corner under one of the counters, and flushed faintly. "Of course. I was complaining that we can't stick it on half-load now." Kit bent down, and opened the dishwasher door, starting to load it up when he straightened.

"I think we'll have to wash up anyway, Neets. Your dishwasher's broken."

"Oh _man._" Getting up, Nita padded over to the dishwasher and looked inside. "How can you tell?"

"How can you _not _tell?" Kit returned, plugging one ear with his hand. "It's screaming bloody murder."

"Kit has an affinity for machines, unlike you and Nita with living things," Annie explained to Ronan, as he watched curiously as Kit started to argue with the dishwasher; his tone going higher pitched as he rattled off in the quick fluidic words of the speech. Nita joined in with the argument a few moments later, Kit having explained the problem, and she started to convince the metal which had lain in the ground so long ago that it should be together again and not broken. With a snap, the problem apparently fixed, Kit shoved in the rest of the plates and cutlery as Nita put in the detergent tablets. Getting to his feet, Kit pushed the door shut and looked at it dubiously.

"Let's hope this works," he said, in English, and pressed the start button. He frowned, obviously hearing something else from the dishwasher, then smiled as it started off again. "See, I _haven't _lost my touch, missy."

Nita frowned and headed back to the table with her glass full of water, and merely glowered back at Kit as she sat down next to Ronan and patted his arm sociably and giving him a toothy grin. Kit rolled his eyes and dropped back into the chair.

"So, I guess we'd better powwow," Annie remarked, looking from Nita to Ronan to Kit, and trying _not _to think the words '_this smells like trouble . . ._' "Why don't we—"

_"Nita!_"

Annie was interrupted by a shrill scream from the living room, and nothing was spoken between them as all four instantly leapt to their feet and ran through to the living room. Dairine was stood on one of the armchairs, and holding Spot in one hand defensively and another fireball floating in her other. Nita and Kit gasped in recognition, while Annie and Ronan withdrew in horror, as they saw what was stood in front of Dairine. A reptilian looking alien, smelling of rotting corpses and with a sharp-toothed grin, was stood in front of the tiny wizard, holding a blade to her throat.

"You hurt her and --" Nita started, but didn't have to. She felt three sparks of wizardry surround her instantly, and she felt a headache coming on before three spells were simultaneously completed, and the blade dissolved. The alien looked around, disconcerted, and Dairine saw her chance; flinging her hand forward and directing the fireball closer towards the alien's head.

"_No, don't hurtssssss me,_" the alien shrieked in horror, his long, scaly tail flicking downwards, indicating his fear. "_I comessss to bring the onessss called Nita Callahan and Kit Rodriguessssssss a message," _it said in the Speech.

Her chest feeling tight in fear, Nita stepped forwards. "_Well speak your message and be gone,_" Nita commanded, feeling panicky. She felt a hand close over her own, and felt a little braver, knowing Kit was right by her side.

"_If you wantsssssss to ssssseeee the Sssssssssssenior you callsssssssss Carl ever again, then you two, and only you two, will meet ussssss at Copernicusssssss at noon your time to disssssscusssssss the termsssssssss of hisssss releasssssssssse."_

Before anyone could say anything, the alien shook itself and disappeared with a popping sound. Nita shook her head to get rid of the awful buzzing sound in her ears, while Kit let go of her hand to see to Dairine. He helped the shaking girl down from the armchair.

"Hey, kid, why are you so freaked? You could have taken him with one hand behind your back," Kit said, trying to soothe Dairine.

"I'm so freaked, " Dairine explained, "because just before he came I looked in the directory lists, I looked on the missing lists, I looked on the deceased lists for all wizards, and Carl isn't on a single one of them." She looked up at them, worried.

"But those lists display everyone, even if they're in an alternate _reality_ or we aren't supposed to know of them yet," Nita said, thinking of the time when her aunt's name wasn't in the directory.

"Maybe we aren't supposed to know," Ronan suggested with a shrug.

"Maybe this is even more serious an issue than we previously thought," Annie proposed. "This has to do directly with _Him_. I would place good money on it."

No one said anything, and no one needed to even ask who she referred to.

"_I never really thought we'd have to deal with the Lone Power so directly again,_" Nita sent to Kit, her feelings shaken and upended.

"_Me neither,_" Kit sent back, rubbing Dairine's shoulder trying to calm her down. All four of them knew that if it could shake Dairine, Dairine who couldn't be fazed by _anything, _then, even discounting all the other signs, this thing was a bigger issue than _anyone _had comprehended before.


	4. Show Me

**Dancing on the Sky**

**Part One - "Grid of Misery"**

_Chapter Four_ - "Show Me

Author: Mizzy

E-mail: PG-13

This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by Diane Duane, and various publishers. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Summary: Grief can be a hard thing to come to terms with, sorrow can be a recalcitrant adversary, and hope is the hardest thing to find in the middle of a storm when all you can do is dance on the sky and hope for the best.

This chapter dedicated to: Heather.

-----

Nita got the distinct impression that she was missing something. Something big. Something huge. Something that could have an ultimately devastating change on her life . . . Frowning, she bit her lip and stared at her folded hands.

"Neets?"

No-one had spoken much, and the silence hung in the air like a smothering blanket. The temperature didn't help either - this fall had been an Indian summer, stiflingly hot and still. Nita looked up to see Kit looking at her, worried, and she shrugged faintly.

"I'm getting the feeling I've forgotten something _important_," Nita said, spreading her arms in a general sign of confusion. "Probably nothing."

"Hm."

Dairine shifted on one of the kitchen chairs, feeling uncomfortable and lethargic as she stared at Spot's screen. Her laptop lay open on the table, but she couldn't muster any energy to do anything with it. "Nothing . . . What I learn in Computing . . ." Dairine said slowly, pulling a face. "Nothing they tell me is anything new, anyway."

"Dari, are you all right?" Kit raised his eyebrows and Dairine blinked at him owlishly before pulling a cynical face.

"Sorry, I'm ranting about _nothing _again," Dairine apologized, with that tiny smirk on her face when she'd cracked some kind of joke which all the rest were too stupid to understand or pick up on.

"School!" Nita flushed as everyone looked at her, gazes scrutinizing and brows furrowed with confusion. "It's a _school _day," she added, feeling slightly uncomfortable.

"I almost forgot about that," Ronan faintly admitted, looking more pleased than probably should have done considering the circumstances. He checked the clock on the kitchen, gaze darkened as he calculated the difference, and came up with something that darkened his mood. "It's two pm there. I'm missing English."

"But… we're supposed to _be _at school," Nita continued, feeling fairly stupid.

Annie chuckled out loud. "Don't worry, I made your father call in to the school, tell them that you and Dairine are grieving over someone close you've lost. They're giving you today and tomorrow off, which leaves us four days free, considering tomorrow's Friday."

"Mom got me off school too," Kit said helpfully, "same reason. It's not lying, because it's a close friend we've lost."

"More like misplaced," Dairine muttered sourly.

"No one ever really expects me to be in every day anyway," Ronan said, his voice slightly tenser than before, betraying his slight discomfiture again. Then he frowned. "Oh you can't be _serious._"

"I beg your pardon!" Annie said, sounding astonished. "Serious about _what_?"

"What do you _mean _two days . . . that's so incredibly . . . Autumn equinox . . . Bloody hell . . ."

Annie, Nita, Dairine and Kit exchanged worried glances as Ronan apparently kept up a one sided conversation with himself. His face had suddenly gone blank, and had the situation not been so serious Dairine would have quipped '_the light's are on but _nobody's _home_."

Unbeknownst to Dairine, Nita was thinking vaguely the same thing, and was a little disturbed at Ronan's expression. "_It's like his body's working but he's gone on a vacation or something . . ._"

Suddenly he snapped out of it, blinking furiously and slumping his head into his arms.

"What just happened?" Annie asked, sounding concerned, her grey eyes clouding over in worry.

Ronan lifted his head, hair clouding his eyes and he brushed it away furiously. "_He _wanted a word with me. Seems we only have two days to do this. We have to get this done by midnight, September 21st, _our _time. Greenwich Mean Time, that is."

"He?" Dairine showed an unusual lack of understanding for a second, before her face colored, and she shifted uncomfortably again. "Oh. St. Michael."

Ronan nodded, looking more than a little shaken and miserable. "He usually stays quiet. Promised over the summer not to overtake my consciousness and go gallivanting all over the country trying to right wrongs and triumph over evil . . . Pokes his nosy highness in when he needs to tell us stuff." He paused, thoughtfully. "Inconsiderate bastard," he added, his tone darkened.

"Today's September 19th . . ." Kit looked worried. "We have a day and a _half_?"

"Thirty-four hours," Dairine calculated. She brought up her knees and perched unsteadily on the chair, Spot growing his spidery legs and crawling over to balance on her legs and the edge of the table. The fiery redhead bent her head closer to the screen, and started to type away furiously.

"I guess we have no choice," Nita said, her face pale but her tone determined and resolute. "We go up to the moon at noon, and see what these _Calur'tee_ want with Carl."

Kit nodded, knowing Nita had identified the alien. She did have the better knowledge of the extra-terrestrial. While his knowledge of the strange and alien was increasing, his affinity with machines and the inanimate made his focus more on the ships, the transports of the aliens. "But he may just be the messenger," Kit added, his tone trembling more than Nita's but his face reflected the resolution in her tone. "We have to be prepared that Carl's kidnapper is of another species. Or is _Him_."

"Always the optimist, aren't you Rodriguez?" Ronan asked, his tone openly scathing this time.

"Better than being unprepared," Kit retorted, almost openly predatory to the boy two years his senior.

"Are you saying I'm unprepared?" Ronan looked almost amused, but the dancing light in his eyes reminded Nita too much of the blood wrath in his eyes during the terrible battle, and she shivered.

"Maybe you don't know as much as you'd like to think," Kit retorted defensively, folding his arms.

"Boys, can you stop your libido getting in the way of things here and get to the matter at hand?" Dairine lowered the lid of her laptop, and peered menacingly over the top. Her diminutive physical presence wasn't so scary, but her will and projected presence was scarier than most. "You can be territorial over my sister later, right now, we need to find Carl and stop bickering like _five year _olds!"

Dairine slammed the slid of her laptop fully closed, and slid it under her arms before jumping to her feet. "I am going to go do some more research in the living room, since I am not on active status," she said. "My status is now at _Available/Restricted,_ so if you decide you eventually need my help you know where to find me." With one furious glance at Ronan, and a chiding one directed at Kit, Dairine flounced out of the room.

"That's the second time in two days," Kit said, slightly subdued, and he directed his gaze to the closed door. "I'm worried about how's she taking this. She seems almost as bad as Tom." A brief image of Tom, crumpled and destroyed as they'd last seen him, flashed in his mind and his face hardened again. "_We'll find him again, Tom, I promise . . ._"

"I guess we can just prepare for your trip up to Copernicus," Annie said, dusting her hands and pushing herself away from the table. "I'm going to go out and talk to some of the local wizards. Kit, could you come with me? I might have use of your manual after a while."

Kit nodded, ashen-faced, and stood up. "I'll be back before twelve," he said, picking up his jacket where he'd discarded it on the back of one of the chairs and heading out of the room. Annie looked at the door, then at Nita, for a long second.

"You two be careful," Annie said, looking through into the living room where she could hear Kit and Dairine exchanging a few words. "See you in a bit."

Annie disappeared through the door, closing it gently behind her, her demeanor comforting and supportive. Nita pondered over her Aunt's closing words for a while.

_"Be careful_… _what does she mean?"_

"This is a little bit over my head."

Nita turned to see Ronan looking tense, like a tiger crouched to pounce, and smiled reassuringly at him. "It doesn't get any easier, trust me."

Ronan snorted in dry amusement. "I don't doubt that."

"So . . ." Nita drew out the word, feeling a slight twinge as the front door slammed shut. _Someone _wasn't so in control of their emotions, and from the churning in her stomach which Nita realized wasn't to do with her nerves at all, she realized it was Kit. "_This is all unnerving him more than usual . . . Maybe it's a boy thing . . ._"

Looking at Ronan worriedly, and gingerly putting her manual on the tabletop, Nita tapped her fingers on the table and was about to try and start a polite conversation about school, home, the weather, when Ronan looked at her confused.

"Libido?"

Nita frowned until she realized Ronan didn't know the meaning of the word. She started to blush furiously.

Ronan stared at her for a second, before irately wishing he wasn't so dumb. "_Oh_. That. Sorry."

Nita noticed he didn't sound too apologetic, but shrugged anyway. "It's just Dairine. She gets histrionic when she's angry. Don't give any more thought to it." She slid off the chair and moved over to the fridge, pulling a container of orange juice out of the fridge and feeling abruptly glad that she didn't have to deal with school on top of all of this. She doubted she would be able to handle it. Actually, things were going a _lot _more smoothly than usual . . . "Ronan?"

"Hmm-mm?"

Nita slammed the door closed, and leant against it, trying to pull open the cardboard container as she did. "Doesn't this all seem so convenient to you?"

"Actually it seems more inconvenient to me," Ronan replied with a laugh, as he got up and took the orange out of her hands. Nita felt vaguely annoyed, although she couldn't pinpoint the exact reason why, as Ronan jerked the top and the orange opened; splashing onto the floor a little below. He reached up the cupboard for three glasses and carefully poured out the juice before passing the container back to Nita. She closed the flap and moved to slide it back into the fridge, before taking one of the glasses offered to her and following Ronan into the living room.

Nita took one of the seats near the large bay window in their sitting room. Dairine was curled up in their father's favorite armchair, next to the television, and the bowl of chips she'd poured out yesterday were being consumed almost absently as she scrolled fiercely through records on her manual. She watched as Ronan crossed the room and put the glass of orange juice by her sister, and suppressed a sudden giggle as Dairine didn't even acknowledge him; merely taking the glass and taking a sip out of it before putting it down next to the chips and continuing her fierce scrutiny of the records.

"She really doesn't like me all that much," Ronan commented as he crossed the room and sat on the seat next to the one Nita was on. He wrapped his hands around the tall glass tumbler, contemplating the color of the juice and smell, but not actually drinking any of it.

Nita shrugged. "You'll get through to her eventually."

Ronan laughed at that, out loud, but even that wasn't enough to make Dairine look up from Spot. "Yeah. So, I guess, you should maybe put some spells aside if you'll need any on Copernishumishicus," he said, finally taking a drink from the glass.

"_Copernicus,_" Nita corrected with a smile, swallowing the orange without actually tasting it.

"Whatever." Ronan seemed unconcerned, and Nita reflected he was a little like Dairine in that respect. You could only tell they were concerned when it was a _big _thing that was wrong, and by that time you knew you were in big doo-doo.

Nita gulped down some more of the juice, setting it to one side and getting to her feet. "I guess I do have to prepare some. I'll be in the garden in you need me."

Ronan watched as Nita moved into the kitchen to pick up her manual again, before hearing the light footsteps and a click which meant Nita had gone outside. Looking down at his glass, he looked across at the fierce determination on Dairine's face, and wondered yet again what he was doing there. He was obviously needed for some reason - nothing was done without a purpose, of course - but what that could be even if was baffled. Even _St. Amazing Michael _was confused. Ronan inwardly smirked at the power in his head, and felt a brief tingle of resentment.

"_Hey, you wanted to share my head with me_," Ronan challenged silently.

"_I didn't know you were as stubborn as _I _was…_" a voice answered, so softly Ronan almost thought he had imagined it, but for the fact the thought was not his own.

That was the difference between those wizards who had manuals, and those, like Ronan and Annie, and the cat wizards that patrolled and maintained the gate systems on Earth, who listened to the Whisperer. They had the added difficulty of forever wondering whether they were insane - hearing voices and such - while they got books. Books were _never _crazy and insane. Ronan smirked suddenly, and knew he would prefer hearing the Whispers than flicking through a manual like that, and he knew a computer would drive him crazy. Of course he knew enough about computers to be able to send an e-mail, and use IM programs, but that was about his limit.

He looked up and tried not to show his shock that Dairine was quietly watching him over the top of her laptop.

"You don't like me. Why?"

Dairine blinked at the direct question, but stared straight back at Ronan with a challenging glare which might have been amusing under different circumstances but now, in that time and in that place, looked fiercer than a lion. The petite girl shifted in her seat, while glaring back at him defiantly.

"It's not that I don't like you. I don't _know _you. I don't know what's going on in your head, and, I imagine, I don't know any more than you do either," Dairine explained, with a brief shrug. "You don't like me either."

Ronan shrugged. "I suppose I don't know you either," he said, neither affirming nor denying her statement. Dairine suspected it was from the danger of lying in any language - they spent way too much time trying not to trip up on the huge errands the Powers gave them to trip up on the smallest error from being overly confident - and felt even more nervous than before. "And you have a hell of a lot of power."

Dairine smiled, a sad remnant of the perpetual cocky smile that used to grace her expression and now only occasionally shone through. "You know, you might be all right. Just . . ."

"Just… what?" Ronan asked, cocking his head to one side.

"Don't mess with things that don't belong to you," Dairine said softly.

Ronan stopped himself from rising to that translucent order to keep away from her sister, and bit his lip while he thought of a more diplomatic thing to say. As usual, diplomacy didn't quite rise to the occasion. "I happen to be very fond of Nita."

The reply startled Dairine a little, and Ronan felt a small inappropriate surge of glee that he'd got one over on the intelligent wizard (even though he was by years her senior), and Dairine frowned slightly. Ronan could tell it was taking all her concentration not to say something rash and stupid. Thanks to the Oath, Dairine knew he was a wizard and he wouldn't lie. It didn't guarantee he would tell the whole truth, though.

"If you hurt her, I will kick your ass," Dairine said, almost without intending to say it.

Ronan spread his arms. "Feel free to do so. I don't intend on hurting her."

"Intentional or not . . . If you make her choose when she's not ready, you will hurt her. And if you decide for her . . . Well, that's even worse . . ."

"Choose what?"

"I think you know what I mean," Dairine responded, and she didn't say anything more. She concentrated on her work at hand, and didn't even acknowledge his confusion or even his presence in the room.

Ronan paused thoughtfully. He supposed he _did _know what she meant, and the true meaning of her statement hit him like a jackhammer on the back of his skull. Feeling mentally winded, he took a thoughtful sip of the orange juice and just hoped. Hoped for a happy ending and all loose ends tied off neatly.

"_Like that's ever going to happen_," Michael sniggered in the tiny corner of his mind he always seemed to hang around in.

More than a little miffed with the situation, Ronan narrowed his eyes. "_Oh shut up._" There was instant silence in his mind, and Ronan began to feel a little unnerved again. It seemed all the clichés were right - you _couldn't _have it all at once.

The garden at the back was a shimmering gold, and a sullenly high temperature matched the warm hues of colors. Nita shut the door behind her with a click, leaning back against the door and pressing one side of her face to its cool surface. Despite her choice of summer clothing, it was still that temperature where everything tends to cling to you and make you constantly sweaty. Looking around the garden, Nita stepped forwards, crunching over the leaves and feeling glad for a blissful moment that she didn't have to go to school.

Then the million and one reasons why she _wasn't _at school came crashing down on her and she scowled for a moment.

"_Don't scowl, little one, it makes you look like a hobgoblin_."

Her head lurching up in surprise, Nita's gaze settled on the Rowan tree in their backyard, shimmering silver from the sunlight and the leaves carpeting the branches and the ground around.

"_Dai, Liused,_" Nita greeted, stepping up to the tree and leaning against the cool surface of the trunk.

_"You have a lot on your mind . . . You barely have time for me any more._"

Nita felt the chiding tone in the tree's thoughts, and patted its bark comfortingly. "_I'm sorry, Liused. After mom . . . left . . . I haven't been much company for _anyone._"_

_"I sensed that grief from you even from this far. . . You must let it all go, Nita. Clinging to your own sorrow is a destructive thing . . ."_

_"I know. I just don't know _how._ The manual, the specialists, my friends . . . They all say what I _should _do, but I don't know _how._"_

Liused chuckled, the deep throaty kind of laugh associated with rowans. "_Child. . . Sometimes you think too much instead of just _being_ . . . I think you get so hung up on saving the world that you become mechanical and forget about yourself . . ."_

Nita made an indifferent sound from the back of her throat. "_I guess . . ._"

"_I've been around a lot longer than you, Nita, and I've been here while you've grieved before. This one's a little different, I know, but the concept is the same. Let her go, Nita_."

"_I have."_

"_If you have, as you protest, then you would not be stuck backwards while everyone else is going forwards . . . Think on it, child, while you get some spells in order for noon_ . . ."

"_I will, Liused. Dai-stihó."_

_"Dai-stihó, Nita."_

Nita pulled away from the rowan, and moved to the other side of the garden. Sitting down cross-legged, Nita almost lost herself for the two or so hours she had left, knotting circles, half-preparing transit spells from the moon, to other worlds . . . Defensive spells . . . Offensive spells . . . Translation spells if necessary for writing . . .

She was disturbed by the door being pushed open, and a quiet lanky figure standing in the doorway. Nita looked up, still cross-legged and not feeling her knees any more with a long silvery-blue string of variables looped over one hand, to see Ronan looking at her quietly. She blushed again, feeling her cheeks ache almost, and put it away in the small part of space she stored them in.

"It's almost time," Ronan said, quietly. Nita got to her feet, taking a minute to rub her knees and trying to get some feeling into them before she moved again. She'd made that mistake once, when she was nine, of spending too long cross legged. Her feet had 'gone to sleep', and were so numb she couldn't feel them. She remembered walking out of the classroom, and landing sprawled in the middle of the corridor, Joanna looking down and laughing at her. Everyone looking down and laughing at her while she was an inelegant sprawl in the middle of the hallway, surrounding by jeering kids and not knowing where she was or how to get out of it. Her glasses had broken too, and she couldn't see, blood clouding her vision and eventually she was pulled up and away by the school nurse.

For a week, in the school assemblies, the principal read the parable of "The Good Samaritan" every time, and Nita had sat there, squirming, with stitches in her nose where the glass had gone in, knowing it was her they were talking about. Only there had been no good Samaritans for her, only lazy Jews. _"No Jews either..."_ Nita thought with a wry grin, wishing her brain would stop paralleling her life with old stories from an old book.

Brushing dirt off her knees as well, Nita walked unsteadily up to the house, her manual clutched in her hand like a lifeline; her knuckles white with the unconscious amount of pressure she was using to grip it with.

"You okay?" Ronan asked, and Nita opened her mouth to respond with '_Yes, fine' _but shut her mouth suddenly. She didn't reply, but Ronan understood that she wasn't feeling okay.

"_I probably won't feel okay for a very long time . . ."_ Nita thought to herself, the thought spinning in her mind and at that moment she had never felt more alone. "_With all my friends here and I still feel so alone . . . Why?"_

"_Because you're pushing us away . . ."_

Nita stopped, stunned for a second as she entered the house, and Ronan grabbed her arm, worried. Nita looked at him, wide-eyed, taken aback until she realized Dairine hadn't spoken in her own head. She'd just _imagined _it. The fact that she was imagining exactly what they were all thinking moved Nita, in her mind as well as physically, and she jerked; moving inside the house like she was being manipulated by a puppeteer. "_And I don't even know who's pulling the strings any more . . ._"

She let herself be led by Ronan into the sitting room, feeling more numb and bewildered than before, and looked around her slowly. Dairine was sat in the same armchair, only now just getting onto the orange juice and looking at Nita with a weary glance. Annie stood in the doorway with a cardboard container that smelled of cheese and pepperoni and warm bread, and Kit was standing on the other side of the room, exactly opposite Nita, and with an expression on his face that he abruptly tried to cover up when he noticed Nita looking at him. An expression that horrifyingly reflected the grief in his soul.

"_Looks like I'm not the only one who has to let go . . ."_

Shaking her head to clear her thoughts, Nita managed a weak smile and checked the clock on the wall; a chrome and glass affair her mother had been sent by her pen pal in England.

_11:43_.

Lifting her head challengingly, she left Ronan's worried grasp, and stepped forwards to face Kit; standing a meter in front of him. Grey eyes met brown in a silent acknowledgement of what was ahead, and Kit faced her stare back exactly.

"Ronan and I are going to update Mr. Swale on what we've got so far," Annie said, watching the two teenagers face each other in a silent confrontation which no one understood but the two hushed combatants. "Dairine is going to stay here, keep a watchful eye over what's going on. Call on her for backup if desperately needed, and you'll know where we are. Kit informed me of the pizza for Tom. Is that settled?"

"Settled," Nita responded, her arms still frozen by her sides as she kept up the quiet assault on Kit. Kit glowered back darkly. Both knew the stakes. This was something they hadn't done for a long time, and was something they needed to do together. Solidly. They needed to move and think and act as a unit again, and they'd been too far apart for too long to expect it all to fall back naturally, and there was only one way for that to happen.

It happened swiftly, as there wasn't much time, but even if it had been orchestrated to occur in an exact second in an exact time period it couldn't have been brought off so swiftly. Nita and Kit opened their thoughts to each other, a swift barrage of grief and emotions and thoughts and feelings. Nita's legs swam and the room spun dizzyingly for a second, and for a moment she thought she was going to be sick until Kit wrenched off the contact with a final tug. Both recoiled, stepping backwards, Kit scraping his elbow on one of the table.

Nita held her head for a second, but felt the old rhythm back and the old synchronization.

"_That was . . . way overdue,_" Nita sent silently.

"_Hell of a kick," _Kit added, rubbing his elbow distractedly.

"What just happened?" Annie demanded, concern etched on her face for the two.

Dairine responded, much to Nita's relief. "It's been a long while, too long, since Kit and Nita actually did anything that much together. As you know, wizardry partners can communicate in a silent telepathy from time to time. It tends to drift off over the years if not used too much. They just forced themselves to communicate everything in a few seconds to each other that they would have done over the last few months when they hadn't used the ability . . . It's the only way they can really, truly work as partners again…"

"Wow. You can do that?" Ronan sounded impressed.

"Apparently so." Kit rubbed his elbow again. "Although it's more of a general overall feeling; it's more the _abridged _version . . ."

"There weren't any exact thoughts," Nita added. She looked up, offering Kit a weak smile. "Well, I'm going to have a headache for month"—("Tell me about it," Kit muttered, his interruption acerbic but sarcastic)—"but let's get on with this."

"Are you going to be okay?"

Dairine looked from one to the other, feeling a small inward smile of satisfaction as the two grinned at each other, and waited for an answer.

"I think," Kit said slowly, "that we _might _eventually be okay." He swallowed, hard, obviously caught off guard but incomprehensively appreciative of what had just happened. "Eventually. But we will be. And that's all that really matters, right?"

"I think it is," Annie agreed, a smile on her face that reached her eyes as well, and she exchanged a long glance with Ronan. The lanky teenager was a little edgier than he was before, but looking a lot more relieved that Nita was on her way to a recovery of sorts.

"Well what are we _waiting _for?" Dairine demanded incredulously, getting to her feet and flapping her arms around in a fair approximation of a chicken. "Let's _go._"

Dairine picked up Spot, not wanting to let him walk on his own after last night, and flounced outside.

"I wish she would just _stop _with the melodramatic exits," Ronan muttered sourly.

"She'll grow out of it," Nita said confidently, before pausing and wincing as Dairine started yelling for them again.

Kit shot her a look which plainly said _"in your dreams," _and Nita had to sullenly reflect that, yet again, her wizardry partner was right. "_But,_" Nita thought triumphantly, "_I'm not going to give him the satisfaction of _knowing _that._"

Chuckling to herself, and feeling as if the heavy burden she'd been carrying around wasn't exactly _gone _per se, but closer to being lifted, and she stepped out after Kit ready—for the first time in a long while—to face whatever was ahead.

**Author's Notes:**

No, it wasn't Gollum making a cameo in chapter three. giggles The alien species _Calur'tee _are listed in the manual, and if I translate the speech properly it states that "_the Calur'tee are not the most intelligent creatures in the universe. Reptilian and with a lisp, they are usually employed as 'muscle' for some of the smarter aliens._" Nita discovered them in one of her extended study times with her manual, after realizing during the events of "_High Wizardry" _that Kit had been swatting up on _her _topic (alien life/extra terrestrials.) While the _Calur'tee _are just a plot device, they do have back history, including a period in their history while they abducted humans from earth in mysterious circumstances. Much documentation was lost in the _Calur'tee_'s civil war, 212-EWCT (Eastern Widdershins Calur'tee Time - circa late 20th century on Earth) and all that is left are three names of humans abducted in a two hundred year period: Jack, Agatha and Presley. We can only assume that if left to their own devices the Calur'tee may evolve into what is commonly classed as 'sentient' life. The only huge mention in the manual of the Calur'tee, and what makes them renowned among races with wizards, is that one of their number invited the Lone Power to tea, inadvertently destroying His efforts to destroy their world. However, this is all part of a longer story of the Calur'tee which may never be told, especially not in _this _story, which is about Nita and Kit. So let's get back to them, 'k?


	5. I Have Found You

**Dancing on the Sky**

**Part One - "Grid of Misery"**

_Chapter Five_ - "I Have Found You

Author: Mizzy

E-mail: PG-13

This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by Diane Duane, and various publishers. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Summary: Grief can be a hard thing to come to terms with, sorrow can be a recalcitrant adversary, and hope is the hardest thing to find in the middle of a storm when all you can do is dance on the sky and hope for the best.

Warning: Don't eat my mum's vegetable pie. She puts marmite _and _peanut butter in it. Urgh.

-----

They landed on the moon about a minute before the appointed time, raising up a whirl of moon dust around the perimeter of their air bubble that swirled around and just floated around in the air. Nita felt herself almost distracted by the small specks of dust. They would have probably lain dormant for a longer time if she and Kit hadn't transited in and disturbed them. Now they were inadvertently moved from the existence they'd known so far, and were eddying around in a churning display; a simple dance on the sky that no one could understand until they were one of the dancers, and none of the dancers fully understood. It was just something they had to do because they were put in the situation, and now they had to make the best of it.

Kit, by her side, was already looking around; his eyes narrowed and entire poise screaming '_I don't like the feel of this situation at all . . .'_

"No one's here," Nita whispered, not feeling it was appropriate to use a tone louder than that. As it was her voice seemed unnaturally guttural and loud in their small space.

"And the _Guardian's _weekly top observer prize goes to _Nita Callahan_ of Long Island," Kit muttered sardonically. Nita shot him a look that was half-way between annoyance and amusement.

"What time is it?"

Kit rolled his eyes to the firmament, which sparkled with the heady spread of stars sprinkled across light years into infinity, and lifted up his arm to check. "12:01."

Nita sighed irritably. "What's the point of punctuality if no one else sticks to it."

"Politeness," Kit responded, shrugging quizzically.

"That was a _rhetorical _question," Nita said, shuffling in the dust beneath her feet.

"_We sshall ssssave the quessstionss for later. We don't have much time," _a menacing voice hissed in the speech.

Instinctively turning, Kit grabbed the strings of the speech necessary for an instant fireball which he had used three hours earlier to toast bagels since Annie was hogging the cooker, and Nita steadied herself to send them back to Earth if a trap was sprung. Two shimmering black eyes faced them, and they both looked at the Calur'tee suspiciously.

"Forgive my late entransssse," the Calur'tee said.

Nita stared accusingly. "You can speak English?"

"I learned to talk your language sssso we could communicate better." The Calur'tee shrugged, unconcerned. "My name is Ssssasshantariossss."

"I'm Kit, this is Nita," Kit said, jerking his head at Nita. "What have you done with the wizard we call Carl Romeo?"

Sashantarios held up his hand in defense. "We have done nothing. I think you came up here with some falsssssse ideassss about ussss. We are mercccenariessss, yessss, but thisssss time, a travesssssty hassss been done to both of our raccccccessss."

"We're listening," Nita said stiffly, recognizing that this Calur'tee, as a wizard, wouldn't lie to them. She'd found that out while studying some of the alien life a few months ago. In a lot of cultures wizards were renowned and favored about all others; their gift was precious and revered. Similarly, wizards in a lot of other cultures did not lie, taking the concept of the Speech and names very seriously - any lie, however small, in whatever language you were communicating in, would be enough to strip you of your wizardry and your life.

"The one I sssent down to get you wassss not a wizzzzard. I am afraid I usssssed small decccception to get you up here. The Calur'tee are being framed for the kidnap of your Sssssssenior Carlromeo." Sashantarios strung the two names together, and folded his scaly arms across his chest, or where on a human the chest would be, but Kit wasn't so sure the lightly jerking expanse of scales under his arms could be describes as such. "He isssssss being held by Morganna."

"Morganna? Another kind of alien?"

"No." Sashantarios waved his tail in disgust at Kit's wrong guess. "Sssssshe isssssss the ruling forcccccce of the Ssssssssigma Quadrant… Ssssssshe removessssss wizzzzzardssss for her own ussssssssse, they ssssssay ssssssshe wassss of your planet. Sssssshe…"

Whatever else Morganna was, Nita and Kit didn't have the chance to find out. Sashantarios jerked, as if being pulled up by his spine upwards, and he bent over doubled, wheezing. Nita ran forwards instinctively to help, but Sashantarios hissed at her, his eyes flashing red. "Don't. I have to go. I am sssssorry I could not ssssssay more, but . . ." He jerked his head upwards, nervously, as if something was watching him. "Find your ssssenior . . . Both of our raccccccessss are at ssssstake . . . I bid you well, young wizzzzzardssss . . ."

"_Wait_!" Kit yelled, the sound magnified to an impossibly loud sound, but it was of no use. Sashantarios blinked apologetically at them, before flinging one scaly hand into the air and disappearing in a shimmer of blue light.

"_Dammit!_" Dropping to her knees in frustration, Nita sunk her face into her hands. "He got away . . . but there was so much we needed to know . . ."

Kit knelt down beside her, offering her help to stand up. "Don't worry. We've got enough to make a good start, and thirty-one hours is more than enough time to get Carl back and kick some alien ass."

Nita offered Kit a watery smile. "Yeah, I guess. We should get back. It's a pity we didn't record what he'd said, though; I don't know if my memory's good enough to remember everything."

"_Ahem_," Kit said loudly, holding up a string of symbols in the speech in his hand. "One of us has their head screwed on enough to think of things like that."

Nita stared at the symbols in disbelief. "You… you… you… _genius!_"

Kit had actually been about to admit it had been Annie's discussion on car radios and how she wished you could record tapes while in the car to save time that had inspired him to prepare the recording spell, but couldn't say anything as he was in shock. Nita had wrapped her arms around him, and was now hugging _him _firmly, from her own volition. Repeating to himself in a steady mantra that she was only doing this because he'd done something as her friend that could save Carl, Kit disentangled himself from her gingerly and smiled.

"Come on, let's get back," he said. Feeling blood rush to his face, he turned around on the excuse of getting to his feet, and he felt rather than heard Nita get up behind him.

"OK," Nita replied, a little more upbeat than she'd been earlier. Although she was despondent about the whole lack of exact details, they had a lead on to his whereabouts and reasons of his disappearance, and that was enough to lift their spirits higher than the pessimistic cloud that had obscured them since they learned of Carl's disappearance. She bent down with Kit to sketch out the circle so they get back to Dairine and to Tom to conference on what they'd found out, and realized just exactly what she'd done. She didn't know when she'd ever hugged Kit like that before. Sure, she'd hugged her partner in relief before—relief it was all over, relief that they'd accomplished something, relief they weren't dead. Never before just because she could see the light at the end of the tunnel. Never before just because she'd just _wanted _to . . . _needed _to . . . hug him.

Feeling a little more nervous and unsure of herself, Nita tried to stop the butterflies in her stomach and the lightheadedness that was making her dizzy, and she wobbled a bit from the overwhelming wave of restlessness that washed over her. Kit jerked upwards from his furious concentration on tying in all of the variables for the way down to Earth, and took hold of her arm; not firmly, but enough to let her know he was there and would catch her if she fell. Almost as in slow motion, Nita looked up to see him staring down at her with dark eyes intent on her, and with the open emotion on his face that he would never harm her, could never harm her. Physically unable to move, Nita felt her mouth hang open uselessly and she snapped it shut abruptly.

"Thanks," she muttered, when she was able to move, and she watched slowly as Kit averted his gaze and moved his arm away.

"It's fine," Kit mumbled, suddenly embarrassed, and he bent back down to tie in the long string of bindings and shielding he'd created previously and which lay in his own special part of timespace, his individual claudication; busying himself with scrawling his name neatly into the dust in the right space. They went through the motions of checking each other's names, but Nita must have taken longer to linger over Kit's name as he was suddenly behind her, leaning over her shoulder and she shivered from his breath on her neck. She swallowed, hard, and tried to keep her concentration on his name below her. When she reached the end, she frowned a little.

"Kit, the . . . that last symbol isn't there," she whispered, feeling her chest tighten and struggling for oxygen and not knowing whether it was that their supply of oxygen was running out or if it was her own body restricting the flow of air.

"It was only in the temporary slot anyway," Kit explained slowly, staring out at Earth and avoiding her gaze staunchly. He finally turned to her, and Nita could see the mixed feelings on his face; the same expression that Nita guessed was on her own. "I don't think I need it now. Do you?"

Nita swallowed again, and took a deep breath, feeling like she was falling into nothing, but this time feeling that it was OK to take a chance and fall, just to see for once what was at the bottom. "No," she said faintly, the assertiveness that she meant her words still there in the undertones of her words, "I don't think you do."

She shivered at his gaze slightly, and Kit nodded gently. "Then it's fine," he said neutrally, the intent gaze of his eyes on her own making Nita realize she had just answered a question far greater than the one spoken out loud. "_He was in all that pain . . . because of me . . ."_ The thought swam in her head dizzyingly, and she raised her glance defiantly.

"Come on, let's go update everyone," Nita said softly, and at the same time they lifted their voices in the familiar words of the transit spell. Nita let herself go into the spell, letting her voice speak the words she knew so well over routine, and feeling that shiver again as Kit's voiced matched hers perfectly, rhythm-for-rhythm, pitch-for-pitch, and knowing deep inside that while she was in essence the same person she had been on the way up, she hadn't known who that person was. Nita let her gaze drift to Kit again, and she kept speaking fast so as not to let her other thoughts cloud and distract her. She knew who that person was now, perhaps she'd always known but refused to acknowledge it, and now ... Now she didn't have to be like the specks of moon dust that danced to the tune that other people played for it, moving only when shifted by a huge outside force. Nita could dance on the sky like them, only to her own tune and in her own time, and nothing would ever change that now.

Nothing.

Dairine let her legs swing as she sat on the largest bough of the roman tree in their back yard. She'd spent countless hours, concentrating on the tree and speaking to it gently in the speech, but it appeared that life in all its forms was Nita's specialty and not her own. It was a pity. Truth be told, Dairine often was jealous of her older sister, and yearned to do things with that way of showing your emotions on your face and being able to be so open. Liused was one of the things that pulled her and her sister apart, and was one of the things that was solely in Nita's universe and couldn't cross over into her own. Like what really happened in the Song of the Twelve on their vacation, and the inconsolable grief of losing Fred and Ed. Even Kit bordered on one of those solely-Nita items in her life. Dairine saw Kit often enough, knew his mannerisms, his favorite things, even his secret love of Shakespeare, but there was a side of him that only Nita would ever see; if she wasn't so blind as to ignore it.

Sometimes Nita was so dense about Kit that Dairine wanted to scream, hit her sister soundly and even bash Kit up a little until they understood their partnership wasn't as plutonic as they'd like to think. Unfortunately, Ronan complicated matters, as did hormones, and the Powers using her as a catalyst to bring out the _thing _in Ronan's head. Dairine snorted out loud in disgust.

"_Nita and Kit are _idiots," she said out loud, derisively, in the Speech, and almost fell off the branch when a quiet voice announced "_I quite agree_."

Looking about her swiftly, Dairine clung onto the trunk and then patted it lightly. It must have been Liused. Was that a sign things were changing? Dairine didn't like to believe in _fate _and _destiny_, as such. The _force _was a fairytale of Star Wars - wizardry was true - but sometimes, in the dead of the night, or at moments like this during the daytime when she was alone - she could almost taste it, tantalizing, on the wind. Wizardry had been like that to her, once, a cloud in the distance. No matter how fast you ran, how much you wanted it, you never caught up with it. You had to stand still, wish on the wind, and hope your wish could be granted by the Powers.

Deciding to damn her own sense of limitations, Dairine swung down off the tree and was about to head off inside to wait when she felt the tight whisper in the air that indicated wizardry and stepped backwards against the building. Feeling the perpetual cocky grin that she was famous for spread on her face, Dairine skipped forwards when she saw the triumphant expression on her sister's face, but paused when she realized Carl wasn't there.

"What happened?" Dairine blurted out, looking from Nita, to Kit, and the giddy sense in the air of something being acknowledged that hadn't been recognized before.

Kit was the one to explain, rubbing dust and dried leaves off his knees absently. "We met a Calur'tee, _Sashantarios_. He didn't have Carl, it was a ruse to get us up to go speak to him . . . He does, however, know who has him."

"Who?" Dairine asked breathlessly, looking from one to the other and feeling a sense of dizziness that she hadn't felt before.

"Morganna, of the Sigma Quadrant," Nita said, with a brief shrug.

Dairine blinked at her, confused. "Never heard of her."

"Neither have we," Kit said. "But I think we should get to Tom's and see what if he, Annie or Ronan know anything."

"Good idea," Dairine said quickly, bundling Spot under her arm and stepping forwards to join them. "Let's go."

Whether it was because Annie had not yet gotten used to driving on the "wrong" side of the road, or for the fact that the meeting with Sashantarios was slow, or for the fact that transits worked much faster than cars did, no one knew; but the fact remained that all five reached Tom's house at around about the same time.

Kit landed on the patio stones, looking thankful and shooting a wary glance at Nita which Dairine instantly questioned. Kit explained how Nita had shifted their last transit so he splashed into the _stucco koi _pool. Dairine found it very amusing, and, giggling, ran to the back door of the Romeo/Swale household and tapped on the door.

Tom appeared, looking unshaven and all the worse for wear, and let them in without a word of greeting or otherwise. Dairine immediately grabbed her favorite armchair, the one by the front window, shifting a copy of "_La Morte D'Arthur" _onto the floor so she could sit down while Nita and Kit sat down gingerly on one of the sofas.

Looking around, Nita frowned. "How long does it _take _to drive from our house to here?"

Tom settled down wearily in the couch opposite from Nita and Kit, observing detachedly the deliberate position of the two teens, and shrugged in a vapid fashion. "I've never done it myself," Tom said, his voice dry and toneless. He cocked his head to one side after a while, and said the first Tom-ish thing he'd said in a while. "Why _are _you two sitting like there's a brick wall between you?"

Dairine chuckled again, apparently very good-humored at the moment. Nita frowned faintly, figuring something must have happened to Nita in the very brief time they were away, and decided to ask her sister about it later.

"Brick wall?" Kit stared blankly at Tom. Tom's brow furrowed.

"Ok, maybe like a _country _is between you," Tom amended irritably, running one hand rakishly through his already disheveled hair. "And next time I'd rather go to sleep naturally, thanks," he added.

Kit flushed faintly this time. "Sorry," he apologized, making no attempt to move. Tom arched one eyebrow and wisely said nothing. The doorbell going suddenly startled him, and Tom was on his feet before anyone could say anything. He flung the door open, gaze searching and sinking in disappointment when he saw Annie and Ronan on the steps, holding the pizza box. It was still steaming, no doubt the result of some wizardry in the car journey over, but Tom didn't even notice that. He looked behind Annie and Ronan, as if Carl was lurking in the bushes behind them or something. Annie looked up at him then, eyes soft and blindingly knowing as she stepped up and engulfed the wretched man in a comforting hug. Ronan slid past them and padded into the living room, eyes darkening when he saw Nita and Kit there but no Carl. Ronan slid into the couch opposite Kit and Nita; while in the hallway, Tom had semi-collapsed against Annie, and Nita and Dairine's aunt helped him into the living room. Annie was whispering something to Tom which none of them could hear, and they remained in silence as the two adults came back into the living room.

Tom sank onto the coach again, opposite Nita and Kit and next to Ronan, and Annie, casting about the room, moved to sit next to Nita. Nita shuffled over to let her aunt sit down, and Annie squeezed onto the two-seater couch gingerly. Nita felt Kit pressed up against her side, and felt herself blushing ridiculously again.

To everyone's amazement, Tom started to laugh, pointing vaguely at Nita and Kit's uncomfortable expressions. "So _that's _what that was all about," Tom murmured through his gruff laughter, and he subsided for a while until Kit got up and sat cross-legged on the floor; hiding his face with his hand. That set Tom off laughing again, and Dairine giggled a little in the corner.

"Is this some American joke, because I don't get it," Ronan announced, his 'cool' nature more ruffled and disturbed than ever. He looked from one person to the other, as even Annie started to understand what was going on and she giggled. Nita shuffled into the sofa as far down as could go, and Kit remained silent; completely mortified.

Tom's choked laughter eventually calmed down, and Annie handed out the pizza on plates she'd found in the kitchen; making sure she pushed two onto Tom's plate.

"While we eat, we've got something you need to listen to," Nita ventured, feeling a little off guard and wary, and still feeling more than a little giddy. "Kit?"

Kit looked up at her, dark eyes widened, and he swallowed the bite of piping hot pizza he'd just taken abruptly. Coughing, Kit rubbed his eyes as they watered, and he felt a little angry as Ronan smirked. Hastily pulling out the string of variables and instigation constants that would play back what they'd heard out of his little pocket of timespace, Kit steadied it and let it go.

There was silence in the room as they listened to the hissing voice of Sashantarios.

". . . Don't. I have to go. I am sssssorry I could not ssssssay more, but . . . Find your ssssenior . . . Both of our raccccccessss are at ssssstake . . . I bid you well, young wizzzzzardssss . . ."

Kit clicked his fingers and the playback stopped. "That was it."

"_Powers_…" Tom looked genuinely shocked. "When did this happen?"

Forgetting Tom wasn't quite up to speed on everything, Nita quickly updated him on the visit of the Calur'tee the night before. Tom looked a little more hopeful but all the more confused. "I've never heard of this _Morganna _before," he said, sounding winded.

"I've heard of the Sigma Quadrant though," Kit said, sounding troubled. "There's a space station in neutral territory nearby, but there's nowhere for wizards to gate to it. We could gate from Grand Central to another of the bigger neutral stations, and gate from there to the Sigma Space Station…" He pulled a face. "I thought I was out of doing long space jumps for a while."

Nita leant over the edge of the shoulder, and patted his shoulder gently. "It's a pity Dairine isn't on active for this one. She's an experienced long jumper when it comes to space."

Dairine just shrugged. "You two jumped after me," she said with a motion of her hand. "You're great at it. Plus with both of you competing for the _who knows more about aliens_ prize . . ." She shook her head in amused disgust. "If it wasn't such a good thing, I'd be banging your heads together."

Nita stuck her tongue out at Dairine, and Ron just scowled.

"Well, it's a good thing they know such a lot, I haven't got a clue," Ronan admitted. "Which seems to be about what I've known about everything so far. I haven't even got a clue _why _I'm on this case."

"If you're on this case then it means you've got more of a chance of anyone of bringing Carl back," Tom said, shifting in his seat to look at Ronan. "You must have _some_thing this mission requires for completion, and if you pull out now . . ." He twisted away, wringing his hands nervously. "_Please _bring him back."

"Well," Annie said abruptly, "I dare say we're all needed her some way or other, and I think I know my place. I've been informed by Her that I shall need to get back into contact with some of the local wizards I visited with Kit a couple of hours ago. Dairine, you'll come with me, Tom, you too. Even if you aren't able to fully work in your position as senior, your appearance there can startle some of the younger wizards into acting."

"Who do you mean by Her? And what do you mean by needing local wizards?" Dairine asked, confused.

"The Whisperer," Annie explained. "Where I get my wizardry from like many other wizards. Not all of us have a handy manual," she said, nodding at Spot gently. "She informed me that we need to do a group wizardry, unspecified for the moment; I presume we'll learn more as we go along."

Dairine nodded uncertainly, and Tom nodded more for something to do rather than sit there uselessly.

"I guess that means we're doing the space jumping," Ronan said dryly.

"Yippee," Kit added sarcastically.

"Oh, come on," Nita said, smiling way too cheerfully for what they were planning to do, "how bad can it be?"

"I'll remind you of that when you're throwing up on Io," Kit said flatly.

Nita pulled a face. "So, how long have we got?"

Ronan checked his watch. "It's twelve thirty-nine here, meaning . . . It's five thirty-nine pm at home . . . We have thirty hours and twenty one minutes to get Carl and stop Morganna."

"Excuse me?" Tom looked suddenly horrified. "They've given us a time limit on this too? Oh _great_."

"Hey," Nita said firmly, getting up and crossing over to the sofa, firmly taking Tom by the shoulders and giving him a small shake. "We'll get him back, Tom, I promise."

Tom smiled up at her grateful, and if his smile was a little weak and teary eyed around the eyes Nita wasn't about to find fault with it.

"Come on, let's go kick Morganna's ass," Ronan said, mock-cheerfully.

Kit frowned at him for a moment, and Ronan looked at him accusingly.

"What?" Ronan said, after ten seconds of being glared at by Kit.

"You're assuming she has an ass," Kit said, pouting slightly. Nita hit him over the head lightly with her manual and glared at him furiously.

"_Boys_," she muttered, her tone disgusted as she stormed out to the back garden.

"_Dai-stihó, _boys," Dairine called, sounding amused, as with a small wave Kit disappeared off to follow Nita. Ronan shrugged.

"See you when I see you next," Ronan said, sounding faintly disturbed again. "If not, I'll see you in the heart of time," he added, wondering what had made him say those words. Dairine caught the worried expression in his eyes, and leapt off her seat, to the confusion of Tom and Annie. The diminutive redhead padded across over to Ronan, and abruptly hugged him. Ronan, surprised, hugged her back.

"You take care, Ronan," Dairine whispered roughly. "I'll see you in Timeheart."

Ronan pulled back wordlessly, nodding, catching her gaze and feeling a horrible feeling in his stomach. His vision swam slightly and he irritably brushed the tears away. Impulsively, he leaned down and hugged Dairine. "See you in Timeheart," he replied, his tone quieted, and tremulous.

Dairine pulled away, folding her arms around herself as Ronan walked confidently out to the back garden and to whatever lay ahead of them, and she turned rapidly, tears in her eyes. Immediately Annie was on her feet and supporting Dairine by her elbows.

"Dairine, what's wrong?" Annie shook Dairine a little, looking at her with concern as tears started to fall. Dairine clung onto her aunt for a brief moment as she furiously cried before pulling back and rubbing feverishly at her eyes.

"I don't know exactly," Dairine replied dubiously, "but I have the sinking feeling that . . . Three will go, and three will return . . . It's just _which _three that I'm unsure of right now. I just have the sudden horrible feeling that the last time I will see one of those three just happened . . ." She straightened suddenly, looking across to Tom but not directly at him. "I don't know, I'm probably imagining it. It's just… I can't shake off the feeling . . ."

"It's probably just your nerves, dear," Annie comforted, kneeling down and engulfing Dairine in another hug. "Just your nerves," she repeated worriedly, exchanging a tense and uneasy glance with Tom over shoulder. "Just your nerves." Even at that moment Annie had no idea whether she was repeating it to convince Dairine, or . . . to convince _herself._


	6. I'm an Eeyore on the Edge

**Dancing on the Sky**

**Part One - "Grid of Misery"**

_Chapter Six_ - "I'm an Eeyore on the Edge

Author: Mizzy

E-mail: PG-13

This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by Diane Duane, and various publishers. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Summary: Grief can be a hard thing to come to terms with, sorrow can be a recalcitrant adversary, and hope is the hardest thing to find in the middle of a storm when all you can do is dance on the sky and hope for the best.

Warning: Don't eat yellow snow. This is the penultimate chapter to Part One - "Grid of Misery."

This chapter dedicated to: Destiny. For doing things above and beyond the call of beta'ing duty.

Author's Notes: "Dancing on the Sky" has been restructured into a three part fanfiction, each seven chapters long, and you will be able to find them all here, when they are released. Thank you for all your glorious support so far :) Enjoy!

-----

"It's cold."

Ronan shot Kit a look which plainly said, in any culture, "well, _duh_". Flushing dully, Kit blew on his hands to warm them up, and hopped from one foot to another in an attempt to keep warm.

"Uh, Kit?"

Kit looked up at Nita, hearing her tone lased with amusement, and he frowned faintly at her. Nita had twisted to look at him, and she and the group of colorful aliens she'd been chatting to looked at him quizzically.

"What?" Kit said, looking bewildered.

Nita muffled a cough, but the sound still echoed up to the ceiling eerily. They'd stopped off at a Way Station on the way, a place where aliens with interspatial transport could stock up on fuel, to question the natives about the mysterious Morganna before Jumping to the Sigma space station that Kit had researched. Nita turned back to the group she was talking to, and they wiggled their antennae. Kit knew enough about interspecies communication to realize that was a sort of '_sure_' gesture, and he just glowered up at Nita as she approached while trying his best to ignore Ronan who was sniggering at his plight.

"Kit, I'd stop doing that jumping thing you were doing if I were you," Nita hissed under her breath, serious grey eyes sparkling with hidden mischief.

Kit frowned. "Why?"

Nita jerked her head towards the alien group. "They're _Rescardeau._ I think you know enough about them, if only by name, to understand . . ."

Kit's mouth dropped open and he stopped still. Nita patted his shoulder amiably before striding off confidently to resume her chat with the aliens.

"Now I'm officially confused."

Kit turned reluctantly to see Ronan looking at him with severe stupefaction, and he felt himself blushing again. This time it wasn't really anything to do with Nita, thankfully, since she'd been the major reason he thought his cheeks may permanently stay red at one point. It was nice to know that Nita wasn't the only thing embarrassing him at the moment, and that he still retained some of his own stupidity for that particular task. Kit frowned inwardly at his own weird brand of logic. '_Then again…_' he thought ruefully, '_it would help if I didn't blush at _all_.'_

"Uh, the Rescardeau -" here Kit indicated the aliens Nita was talking to with a flick of one of his hands -"well, the males stay underground. The females are the ones who travel, who bring the bread home so to speak, and, well -- they kinda get attracted to other bipedal species. And hopping from one foot to the other is an indication to them that you want to, I mean, erm . . ." Kit moved his hands together clumsily.

"Powers!" Ronan let out his exclamation forcibly, and looked at the aliens with a renewed interest. He too was surreptitiously pulling his jacket closer to himself, and Kit tried to force himself not to grin. '_Well, at least he's not as infallible as he tries to pretend_ . . .' Kit thought absently, and then wondered if he _should _add the jealousy symbol to the end of his name. Nita—and he couldn't help watching her as he thought about her—had mistaken his pain for that emotion, but it seemed she might have more clairvoyant vibes than she thought she did. Fiercely contemplating whether he should add an extra symbol for the intense jealousy he harbored towards Ronan, Kit made himself be brutally honest about his own feelings.

Looking up darkly at Ronan, he noticed the dark Irish adolescent had folded his arms across his chest. The wind beating across the ground of the moon's surface did little to annoy the seemingly implacable individual. He looked as if he could be standing anywhere nice and warm, except for the fact that he was shivering and his jacket was closed for once. Ronan's intense gaze was fixed ahead of him, and Kit felt a fresh surge of jealousy. The confident youngster that held St. Michael in his head was looking at Nita with such a gaze of forceful longing that Kit felt unnerved. Unconsciously folding his arms and mimicking Ronan's gesture, Kit turned his head to glance at Nita.

Nita was deep in animated conversation with the _Rescardeau_. She'd been sensible enough to grab a warmer jacket on her way out, a dark gray which in Kit's opinion set off the mischievous gray of her eyes. Nita had pulled her mousy-brown hair into a high ponytail that would have appeared severe on most girls but on Nita it only served to make her appear more cheerful. She gestured slightly as she spoke lucidly in the Speech to the bright colored aliens, and her cheeks were reddened. Kit wasn't sure if it was from the cold or from all the attention. He knew that Nita, although she projected a confident and somewhat sassy image most of the time, wasn't a great fan of attention, and with this in mind he forced his gaze away.

Listlessly settling his gaze on an interesting formation of moon dust that spiraled up almost fifteen foot, almost like the volcanic ash peaks on Rhisderis that he'd seen in his manual, Kit waited patiently for Nita to finish negotiating for information and use of the gate. Times were tougher recently for wizards across the galaxy. Whether it was because the Lone Power had attacked one too many times now, or for another reason entirely, Kit was unsure. What he _was _sure of was that unless the communication bridge was bridged _soon_, interspecies relations might soon cease to exist.

"She's good at that."

'_Is he going to insist on talking the _entire _time?_' Kit wondered crossly before reprimanding himself harshly. '_Now's not the time to be hostile, Rodriguez . . ._'

"Yes, yes she is," Kit forced himself to say, glancing up with a neutral expression at Ronan. "She's good at everything she does."

"Slightly biased opinion, don't you think?" Ronan said, a queer tone of amusement mixed in with his thick Irish accent.

"Same opinion as yours," Kit countered obdurately, not wanting to be accused of that by someone who was thinking the exact same thing. "Besides, she is my partner. I'm _allowed _to be predisposed towards her."

Ronan whistled lowly, holding his hands up in a defensive position. "Gee, Rodriguez, no one said you couldn't. It was only a statement."

Kit narrowed his eyes. "Sorry. I'm just cold, and I get irritable when I'm cold."

"Never," Ronan said, the irony as plain in his words as his dislike of Kit was in his expression.

Kit scowled, not deigning to react to that bait. '_I'm man enough not to respond . . . for Nita's sake if not for my own . . .'_ He looked up fleetingly at Nita again, the memory of _that hug_ still fresh in his mind, and looked away furiously. '_She doesn't need to choose between me and him. And if she wants . . . him . . . I don't want to stop being her friend just because I'm jealous_.' Frowning, Kit called up his manual, trying not appear too smug in front of Ronan and flicked to the section on extra symbols to balance out your name. '_Jealousy over a desired object or person, for example, is a natural part of being a teenager . . ._' one small passage read in the section, and Kit clamped the book shut with an irritated sigh.

Hormones. _Again_. Kit was just wondering when the monkey circus of adolescence would come to a close when a piercing whistle caught his attention. He glanced upwards guiltily to see Nita bouncing over to them, slightly more buoyant because of the lighter gravity on the moon and simply inclined his head to one side to hear what she had to say.

"They've heard of Morganna," Nita said, her eyes sparkling and infectious enthusiasm present in her voice that Kit hadn't heard in a long, long time. '_Too long,_' Kit thought, with a dry spark of anguish in his gut again. '_Way too long._'

"They have?" Ronan appeared to be slightly more alert than Kit, and Kit felt another flash of irritation - this time directed at himself.

"_Uh huh_," Nita said with a worried smile. She bit her lip for a second before shrugging. "But they haven't heard that she kidnaps any bipedal species as she is one herself . . . They say if Morganna _has_, then he must be pretty important."

"But there isn't anything _overly _special about Carl, unless . . ." Kit started.

"Yeah, that's what I wondered, but Carl's not the only Senior that sells time in the whole universe. I mean, Jeliun of the Kathartas does, and . . ."

"He's much closer, yeah . . ."

"Excuse me? Have I missed something, or are you two doing that cute mind-to-mind thing again?" Ronan demanded furiously, looking from Kit to Nita in a mixture of incomprehension and sarcasm.

"Cute?" Kit said with a laugh. Nita shot him a look of warning, which was undermined by the grin on her face.

"Sorry Ronan. It's just we're not used to having to actually finish sentences," Nita apologized. "When you've been through so many things with just one other wizard, you tend to start having to think along the same lines."

"Huh," Ronan said slowly, unimpressed and looking faintly out of place.

"Carl sells time, Ronan, network time for television ads as well as real time. The only thing he sells time stops for is our solar system, so unless she's planning on coming all that way for just our tiny part of the galaxy, something else must be going on," Kit explained.

"Something big," Nita added. Ronan looked more shocked by Nita's affirmation of what was going on rather than Kit's explanation. "C'mon. They said we could use their gate." Nita jerked her head to indicate they should follow her towards the area of well-trampled dust where the gate was, and Ronan and Kit followed her; gamely trying to master walking on the moon that a gravity lighter than the Earth and heavier than the Moon.

"You think it's cute?" Nita asked Ronan coquettishly as Kit plugged in their requested coordinates to the gate.

Ronan just scowled as they jumped away from the Rescardeau's moon.

"Never. Again. Do you hear me? Never. Again."

"I warned you not to eat that stuff at the Sigma Space Station," Kit said teasingly, having received a similar warning years ago.

Ronan shot a look of pure venom at Kit, holding his stomach and looking whiter than Ponch the time Kit's mongrel had crashed into Kit's mom and been thoroughly coated in wheat flour.

"_Boys_," Nita muttered for the millionth time that day. She looked up and around at the austere landscape and frowned. The horizon was a bleakness, and the horizon of purple and mauve dirt sped away into the distance to meet fuzzily with the smudged charcoal of the sky. "_This _is where Morganna lives?"

"Nice," Kit commented softly, wincing as Ronan lurched suddenly and threw up the rest of the dodgy gunk he'd eaten at the space station. "A lick of paint, a few throw pillows . . . I don't know . . . Could be great."

Nita shot a withering glance in Kit's direction and turned her gaze back to the ascetic scenery. "This is wrong. I don't like this."

"Me neither," Kit agreed. "Ronan?"

Ronan looked at Kit as if he were kidding. "Trust me, the sooner we're back in America with your Senior, the better it is. For everyone concerned. And the sooner I can get away from you two the better it'll be for my mental health."

"Hey!" Nita protested, thumping him amiably on the arm. "We're not all that bad."

Ronan muttered something which sounded suspiciously like "_yeah, right_" and Nita decided not to make an issue of it.

"Right," she said softly, "Kit, does the manual say anything about this planet? The Uuuniaaaars at the station called it _Sesimæ._"

"One step ahead of you, Neets," Kit said, flicking through his manual while keeping one eye warily on the still landscape.

"There's not even any wind like on that moon," Ronan noted.

Nita indicated the sky with a wave of her hand. "Look at that. The atmosphere is so thick nothing can get through. It's a good thing we jumped with that pocket of air, else we'd be standing on a surface that's almost twenty degrees Kelvin."

Ronan swore, earning himself a reproachful glance from Nita. "I don't speak American, but is that a low temperature?"

"Degrees _Kelvin_," Nita repeated. "It's like Celsius, which I _know_ you use in Ireland, except that zero degrees Kelvin is the _lowest _temperature you can get."

"Wow," Ronan commented, looking fairly laidback and unmoved. Nita wondered distractedly if Ronan would ever get incensed by something that wasn't associated with blood and death and war.

"Huh," Kit said.

"Wow? Is that all you can say?" Nita demanded, stomping one foot on the purple dirt beneath their feet.

"What do you want me to say?" Ronan retorted, rolling his eyes to the charcoal smear of sky. "That it's the most amazing thing I've ever heard?"

"Well, maybe a _little _reaction might help! But _no,_ you have to be this emotionless European guy, acting as if we're all beneath you, just because we're American! Just because your home life isn't perfect, and you have a limit to the amount of wizardry you can do, and- and you can _deal _with it all _doesn't mean you're any better_!"

Kit stared as Nita mouthed off to Ronan. Her cheeks were flushed with a dull burgundy color and her eyes flashed with anger.

'_Looks like we've got our old Nita back . . .'_ Kit thought ruefully. '_Temper and all._'

"Just because I don't have your _perfect home life _doesn't mean I'm any less of a wizard," Ronan snapped back, color rising in his cheeks at the same time. "Oh, and just because I don't have the same opportunities to practice wizardry _doesn't mean I'm completely useless!_"

A small tremor caught Kit's attention, and he instinctively slammed his manual shut and steadied himself. "Uh, guys?"

"Oh, _that's right_," Nita retorted to Ronan, folding her arms across her chest. "My home life is so _perfect_. My dad can't stand to be in the same room as me, my kid sister needs an attitude adjustment and my mom isn't there, _and it's all because of me_!"

"Neets? Ronan?"

"Shut up, Kit, this has _nothing _to do with you," Ronan growled, irritated. "Or maybe it has everything to do with you. Nita, why can't you just admit to yourself he's the one you want and stop stringing others along?"

"Namely you?" Nita snorted under her breath. "Stop being so arrogant!"

"Guys?"

"_Shut up Kit!"_ Nita and Ronan yelled at the same time. Ronan took a jerking step closer to Nita.

"_I'm _the arrogant one? You with your uptight attitude and the _I'm always right _look permanently on your face?"

"Oh _please!_ I'm not the egocentric one here!"

"This is no time to be fighting! You're both pathetic at timing, so save this for later when we have the time!" Kit yelled at the top of his voice, the volume muffled by the air bubble surrounding them.

"We're pathetic?" Ronan demanded, furiously turning on Kit, his dark eyes dancing irately. "You're the only pathetic one—you're in _love_ with her and you can't even tell her!" Ronan jerked his head towards Nita and glared back heatedly at Kit.

"You—" Kit's shoulders slumped. "And what did you do? Take advantage of her when she was confused!"

"I knew what I was doing," Nita snapped irritably.

"Yeah, right, you did," Kit muttered mutinously. "If you wanted him in the first place you just should have said something."

"Maybe I did! Maybe you just weren't listening!" Nita retorted angrily.

Kit let out a sharp breath in disgust before finally shrugging helplessly, looking hopelessly old and fatigued in that moment. "Maybe I didn't want to," he whispered resentfully, his dark eyes flickering up to Ronan and heartbreakingly for a second settling on Nita before he yanked his gaze away. "I know what to do next, as a matter of fact, but I can go on my own if you need some time to sort yourselves out."

Nita could only stare, open mouthed, as Kit faced away from them, yanked out a string of glowing symbols in the Speech and cautiously opened up a hole in the dirt. Kit had successfully used the tremors he felt to find an opening, and stony steps sped down into darkness below them. With a final anguished flinch, Kit summoned a smaller fireball for light and disappeared down the steps

"Well— that's just—" Nita spluttered, sinking to the ground on her knees and shaking for a few moments before hiding her face in her hands. She felt one hand tentatively on her shoulder, and she pulled away with a jerking motion.

"He'll come back round once you apologize," Ronan muttered distantly. Nita scrambled to her feet, tears threatening once again to fall and looked helplessly at him. "I don't want to come between you and the one who—" He swallowed hard, turning to look at her, and Nita recognized that soft look of anguish and despair that she'd recognized in Kit's expression moments before.

"I wasn't even in the running for you, was I?" Ronan asked finally, taking Nita's silence for the answer it was. "I wasn't ev—I wa—I wasn't ever going to be the one, was I?"

Nita shrugged, lost, the irrelevant thought that _maybe Ronan isn't as secure and self assured as he makes himself out to be _dancing fragmentary across her mind before drifting into a blissful obscurity.

"I'm sorry."

"What for?" Nita finally managed to find her voice, and it croaked out the question tremulously.

"For being a moron," Ronan said, with a harsh laugh. Nita recognized that laugh. It was the same one she used, when she was trying to pretend that things were all right. She impulsively grabbed his hand and looked up at him, tears clouding her vision.

"Things will work out for you, Ronan, just not . . . Not with me . . ." She moved her gaze pensively to the steps leading down into the planet. "Someone else needs me right now, and I think . . . I need him too . . ."

"Then let's go get your guy, Yankee," Ronan said lightly, his voice gruff with emotions too and Nita felt that brief whisper of truth tighten in her gut.

"Thank you," she whispered, her voice hoarse. "That is if he'll ever . . ."

"Forgive you?" Ronan tossed her a scandalous glance as he headed for the steps. "I bet he already has."

Kit was waiting for them at the bottom of the crumbling steps. He was still balancing a small fireball on his wrist, but his face was hidden in shadows. He waved it around a little so Nita and Ronan could see around them. They were in a small chamber, which seemed not to be natural, as the green-tinged walls were a little too smooth for that. A scale-covered blue-ish alien lay at Kit's feet, and the lithe Hispanic wizard showed no remorse at that fact.

"Apparently this is where Morganna lives," Kit said offhandedly, indicating the metal door to his right.

"Oh," Nita said, standing back to let Ronan past. The lanky Irish wizard folded his arms and studied the metal door quietly. Nita glanced up at Kit uncertainly. "Uh, Kit, I—"

"Leave it," Kit muttered dourly. "Save your apologies for later."

"I let my big mouth open again—I'm sorry," Nita said quickly, with a small frown. "Don't think you can always tell me what to do, Christopher Rodriguez."

Kit opened his mouth to yell at her in horror and then he shut his mouth with a startled "_nnngg_" sound. He gaped at her in a fair approximation of a goldfish for a few seconds, before gulping and finally scowling at her. "Well, not _always_," Kit conceded lightly, a calculating look in his warm brown eyes. "Juanita," he added with a teasing grin.

Nita grinned blindingly back, too confused to actually be able to say something but knowing that this was the start of something that had perhaps always been there, swimming around in the background and clamoring for attention. "C'mon."

"I need some light," Ronan called, his lanky face hidden by his hair. He pushed it out of his face irritably, and Kit padded over to join the Irishman by the door. Kit obliging lifted the light so Ronan could see the door. "Here," Ronan said, lifting his hand and tracing a circle on the door and starting to speak in the speech. "_You don't want to stay closed forever, do you? All of your mechanisms will wear out and stay closed if you don't . . . I'd like to use you, if you'd let me, it would be doing us both a great favor if you—"_

The door creaked obligingly open and Ronan threw an arrogant smirk at Nita and Kit. The whole door was attached to a string of mechanisms, obviously designed to need a pattern of key cards to be opened.

"Show off," Nita muttered, still unable to stop smiling.

"I vote the guy with the light goes first," Ronan said lightly with a challenging grin in Kit's direction.

"Me too," Kit said, surprising Nita until Kit flicked the fireball to nestle on Ronan's shoulder.

"Damn," Ronan muttered. Glancing nervously into the cavernous hole that he'd opened up, he gave a small shrug and began to walk through. Nita followed him and Kit brought up the rear. Kit turned to thank the door for closing behind them, and swiveled on his heel as he heard Nita gasp.

"It's _beautiful_," Nita said, feeling breathless and a little dizzy. The door had lead them onto a narrow precipice, which overlooked a stunning view. Crystalline structures stood tall from the ground, scraping the cavernous roof of the place. Light bounced around these structures, purples and pinks and blues. A narrow stone ledge ran down in a circle around the edge of the cavern, down to what looked like a frozen lake. Nita could almost see shapes under the ice, which looked almost like multi-colored fish. At the head of the lake was a large chair, seemingly constructed from ice and crystal, and shimmering with a warm amber light of its own, and on that chair sat . . .

"_Greetings, bipeds. Welcome to my realm_."

Nita started, and glanced at the figure she could now see on the chair.

_Morganna_. It had to be.

She looked human, striking, and even from the distance away they were stood Nita could see she was at least seven foot tall. The woman was clad in a long black dress that clung around her heels and thin shoulder straps left her pale arms free. Her eyes . . . Somehow, Nita knew they were a cold, hard black, like burning coals, even though they were too far away to see. Somehow, she looked familiar, but when Nita tried to grasp within her memory to find the answer to the puzzle it was like trying to catch the clouds, always just out of reach.

"_Address me in person, wizards_."

Although she had every intention of fighting this order, Nita heard the compelling syllables of the fluidic wizard Speech and felt herself walking down the stone walkway down to the woman. Somehow she knew Ronan and Kit were following her without having to turn to look. Minutes passed as they walked round and round the curving pathway, but they moved in a blurring second for Nita, and in no time at all she found herself stood beneath Morganna's dais. With a vague moment of awareness she realized none of the place was made of crystals, it was all ice, beautifully carved and structured. Her breath rose in clouds of fog.

"_Speak. You."_

Nita felt Morganna's penetrating gaze on her and knew she was talking to her. She gulped involuntarily and spoke in the Speech, the words sliding fluidly off her tongue.

"_We are on errantry, and we greet you._"

Morganna folded her arms, staring flatly at her, clearly wanting more from the stony expression on her face.

"_One of our Seniors is missing, a bipedal human wizard, by the name of Carl Romeo . . . We were told that perhaps you had him, and we would be willing to make a trade—"_

"I don't have him." Morganna spoke now in English, and she sank into her throne with an expression of disbelief. "I am the only bipedal wizard in this sector, except for you three. I like to keep it that way. You will leave."

"But—" Nita started, then blushed at her own brevity.

"I monitor your planet, girl wizard, and don't presume to talk to me in that tone. No wizards have left at all in the last few months." Morganna narrowed her eyes. "Leave. Before I have my minions eat you."

She snapped her fingers, and a low growling emanated from the shadows behind her throne. Nita caught a glimpse of shaggy grey fur and narrowed red eyes and gulped breathlessly.

"Do you—" Kit started. Morganna snapped her fingers again, and Kit was thrown to the icy ground by an invisible hand. Winded, he looked up angrily at Morganna, and Nita bent down to see how he was.

"_Are you OK?_"

"_I'd be better if I knew where Carl was_ . . ." Kit responded in her head with an unhappy moan.

"_I do not have your Senior, and to my knowledge he must still be on your planet, or else he's dead. I cannot lie in the Speech or I would lose my wizardry. What kind of fool do you think me to be? I am tired of your presence now. Leave my sector as quick as you can by your ways, or I shall dispose of you on my own._" Morganna was on her feet now, hand outstretched and looking as if she was going to conjure up some pretty big wizardry when she let her hand fall. "You're pretty certain I have him, aren't you?"

Nita did a double take, and stared at Morganna in disbelief, that feeling of familiarity tugging at her gut more insistently than before. The slender Wizard's tone had completely changed, warmer and more reverberant. When Morganna started chuckling, Nita felt instinctively for a defense spell, an energy ball, _anything, _that might aid an attack but it wasn't necessary. The floor seemed to lurch beneath her feet, and before she had time to blink, to scream, to even see how Ronan and Kit were reacting, it yanked away suddenly in a dizzying spin of colors. A scream echoed in her ears, pounding, and the falling sensation stopped with a _crack_. Nita fell to the ground in a thump, expecting to feel cold ice but instead landing on something soft. The screaming had stopped, and Nita realized with a groggy sense of reality that she'd been the one screaming.

Annoyed with herself, Nita scrambled to her feet, feeling dizzier than she had for a long time, and held her head as she finally looked around her. The ice cavern had disappeared, to be replaced by a cheery looking sitting room. Two blue armchairs faced each other by a roaring fireplace, a window framed by crimson-colored curtains looked out on the bleak landscape they'd seen earlier on the planet's surface, a large wide screen television almost filled one of the narrow walls, and in front of them was a dumpy looking woman with permed gray hair and clad in what looked like a pale blue jumpsuit. Beside her she felt rather than saw Ronan and Kit scrambling to their feet, looking around in bewilderment.

Another throaty chuckle filled the air, and Nita stared at the woman in faint confusion, fragments of the truth blurring across her mind until they collided and everything seemed to make sense at once.

"You're Morganna?" Nita managed to choke out.

"Yep. Surprised?" Morganna asked, still chuckling.

"Then . . ." Kit spluttered incoherently. "I don't get it."

"I do." Ronan looked down at Morganna with a smirk on his face. "That was a glamour you use to keep your servants in check. And I presume you don't like other humanoid aliens visiting because—"

"—it ruins my image, yes. A lot of the aliens that work for me have never seen another biped before," Morganna finished. "Smart one, you are."

"But then do you have any idea where our Senior is?" Kit asked, looking a little perturbed.

Morganna shrugged. "Sorry, luvvie."

Nita sighed. "Looks like we're back to square one."

"I never realized how many wizards there could be in one place!" Dairine exclaimed. "I thought we had a lot in Ireland, but . . ." She trailed off, looking around the park. Annie had organized an obscuring spell with a few of the Advisories that lived near Central Park, and now the whole park was milling with wizards, most bent over complicated looking energy circles. Gigo had insisted on coming, and was now curled somewhere by her feet, guarding the small diagram he'd meticulously constructed in the dirt.

"We're nearly ready to go."

Dairine glanced up to see her Aunt, looking worried and concerned.

"Have you any idea what we're doing?"

Annie barked out a short laugh. "No. I suppose it's just the nature of the Wizardry that needs to be done. This doesn't happen often, the Whisperer telling a whole group like this what to do individually, but if it's happening, it's for something big."

"It is something rather huge that has happened," Dairine said miserably.

"Gigo!" A voice chirped from down by her feet in agreement. The tension on Dairine's face broke, and she picked up her young Wizard friend and gave him a cuddle.

"That's right," Dairine said with a grin. "We'll ace whatever the challenge is, right, buddy?"

"Right!"

Annie shook her head in astonishment. "You two are quite a pair."

Dairine started to nod along, and then opened her eyes wide in sudden wonder. "Do you think we're partners? Me and Gigo?"

"Gigo and I," Annie corrected automatically, cocking her head to one side and regarding Dairine and Gigo with a shrewd glance. "You know what? I think so."

Dairine smiled up at her Aunt sunnily for a second, before petting Gigo on the head and dropping him to the ground. "That's good."

Annie smiled almost whimsically, casting a glance up to the sun. "I guess it's almost time."

"Time for what?"

The familiar voice made Dairine and Annie turn in horror.

"What? I know I'm late—I had this really awful meeting with the Channel 9 advertisers, and—Dairine, what's wrong?"

"Is that—" Annie started, her voice tremulous.

Dairine could only stare in a choked horror, nodding, his name slipping out in a cracked whisper. "Carl!"


	7. Those Dreams Set In Stone

Dancing on the Sky

Part One - "Grid of Misery"

**Chapter Seven -** **"Those Dreams Set In Stone"**

Author: Mizzy

E-mail: PG-13

Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by Diane Duane, and various publishers. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. The words of the Wizardry Oath are all Diane Duane's, and they don't work. (Damn.) Names of casualties were made up, and any resemblance to any living person is purely coincidental. I love my lovely, lovely beta who was able to retrieve this part when my own compyooter BUSTEDDDD. Smooches, Destiny, you're the best!

Summary: Grief can be a hard thing to come to terms with, sorrow can be a recalcitrant adversary, and hope is the hardest thing to find in the middle of a storm when all you can do is dance on the sky and hope for the best.

Dedicated: To all the victims of the war. Find your own peace at the Heart of Time.

Author's Notes: This is the end of part one, "Grid of Misery", in which I tie up a few loose ends, let loose a few more and generally create havoc. The next seven-chapter part will be set a few years on from this. :) Oh, and I'm such a _coward _when it comes to narrating long battle scenes. You have been forewarned.

* * *

Later, when that day would be set into wizardry history books for years to come, it would be described as a day of fire and ash and brimstone, of destruction, pain, flames and destiny, of shadow and mistrust and betrayal and questions, endless questions.

Everyone had a question in mind when Carl Romeo appeared, dishevelled and confused. Right at that moment, despite however much answers were desired, an answer could not be given.

* * *

"Carl!"

Dairine's cracked whisper seemed to be caught up on the wind, yanked high vociferously across the breeze, picked up and amplified unnaturally. Dairine knew almost instinctively that Gigo - brave, plucky, Gigo - had made good use of his inherent wizardry to sound the syllable out to the world.

All work immediately stopped, and the world went still. Too still. Carl opened his mouth to speak - an exclamation, a question, a stuttered oath of surprise - no one ever found out as he was going to say, as the sky fell down.

Everything seemed to happen at once. The air turned foul, a crude smell of lighter fluid and burnt charcoal, with a darkened color of burnt umber, and the clouds heaped up in inky-colored piles of threatening cotton candy. The earth trembled, in shock and fear, throwing the assembled wizards to the floor, gasping for breath.

Annie hauled herself up, dirt across one cheek. She threw her arm out, barked words in the speech, and Dairine struggled to catch them in the roaring sound of the wind. A crackling sound followed the roar of the air, and the air around them sparked, turned white. The defensive shield they'd been preparing for the last hour or so had sparked dramatically into life.

A huge dome of sparkling plasma surrounded them, and instinctively the amassed wizards crowded together, facing forwards. Dairine scrambled to her feet, tugging Carl away from the perimeters of the shield and turned to him furiously. Flinging up her hand, she muttered a few syllables of the flowing Speech. Carl's face twisted in more confusion and horror.

"Dairi--" he started.

Dairine turned to her aunt, red hair flung upwards in the blunt wind and eyes widening to reveal the mini storms within the stormy grey depths, reflecting the terror of the world outside the shield. "It's him. It's _our _Carl."

Annie brushed past Dairine, grabbing Carl by the arm, muttering a brief explanation in the Speech. Carl swore colorfully under his breath, but only for one moment, and he stiffened before extending one hand forwards, fingers splashed against the wind and looking unnaturally white.

A dispersal shield crackled into life, purple and heavy, static crackling against the surface, the wind whipping his hair into his eyes. "_Damn it_!" Carl turned furiously to Dairine. "What's been going on?"

"You disappeared! From all the books, all the fields of wizardry, _everything_. Nita, Kit and Ronan have been given a deadline to find you; the Calur'tee said Morganna has you. Tom's been mad with worry, and we've been called out here!" Dairine shrieked against the wind, her hair a halo of fire around her head.

"_Disappeared?_" Carl shook his head slowly, looking at the amassed wizards. "This is bad."

"You can say that again," Annie commented dryly, looking around edgily.

The words seemed to snap Carl into action, and he looked across at the wizards. "A heavy accrual of power, nearly thirty quads worth . . ." he muttered to himself. "It can mean only one thing."

Annie seemed to know what he meant. "A Wizard Apocalypse."

Even Dairine knew that was bad.

"Apocalypse," Carl agreed. He looked around, fidgeting. "I'll tell the troops." His hard gaze looked up, heavy brown eyes lost in doubt and fear, and Dairine swallowed. It took a _lot _to make a Senior _that _scared. Fear was a norm, but not that much . . .

Carl stalked forwards, nearer the center of the group, his amiable if goofy Brooklyn persona lost in the hard exterior of his Seniority. His responsibility shone out strong, seeming almost to raise his stature impossibly even though he didn't physically change. His voice slipped out, loud, and Dairine nudged Gigo good-naturedly. The little 'bot had taken it on himself to amplify the sound for all the wizards to hear.

"I haven't been missing for the last few days. My existence was masked for a few days with Macintyre's Curse, which can mean only one thing. This will be the second time Central Park has been personally attacked by the Starsnuffer." Carl forced himself to be immobile, though the wind threatened to move him and the roar of the storm threatened to swallow him whole. Stony glances were exchanged by the others as they listened to their Senior. "Let us hope that we can be as lucky this time as last time. It's not going to be easy, but I know we can do it. He has the capacity for change, now. Let's change him."

Agreement came from the huddled wizards, a mass of jumbled sounds and words, a rippling wave of support. The wizards linked hands, and turned to face the storm, strong together.

* * *

Kit scratched his arm absently as he looked around the small house. Something about it irked him, deep to the core of his being, and he couldn't figure out what. Glancing across at Ronan, he noticed the older boy looked extremely uncomfortable. Ronan had his arms folded, his unruly shock of hair pushed behind his ears in irritation. He didn't even have to look at Nita to know what she would be doing. He knew her well enough to know that _that _expression would be on her face, the one that she got when she was studying a hard math problem or something; left fingers twisted into her jacket as she bit her lip, and her brow furrowed, with her right arm across her stomach.

Turning to glance at her, he wasn't disappointed. Nita had _that _expression, and was chewing her lip as she looked around the house, then back at Morganna.

"Something isn't right here," she murmured faintly. A whistling sound echoed faintly from the direction of the narrow corridor twisting away from near the television, and Kit recognized the warm whistle—a kettle. _Well, Rodriguez, she _did _only ask a couple of minutes ago if we wanted a 'cuppa.'_

"Yeah, that's right. Just 'cause the woman's from the UK..." Ronan teased lightly. Nita turned furiously, eyes burning in abrupt anger until she realized he was joking. Her frown quickly changed to an apologetic grin.

"It's just- This all seems awfully familiar." Nita frowned. "It's probably just me."

"It's not just you," Kit shot back, troubled. "This place... Morganna..." Something niggled at the back of his mind, a hint of an idea forming in that disjointed ways ideas tend to do, like scraps of cloud floating across the sky on their way to form larger clouds, but being waylaid on their journey.

"I think she's just a harmless old woman, who likes the power. After all, how many people get the chance to rule an entire _sector_ of space?" Ronan whistled under his breath softly. "Some power can be intoxicating." His eyes were alight with a distant remembering, but Kit noticed Nita's expression first, deep compassion. Patching together fragments of thoughts, memories and snatches of conversations, he thought he knew what it was about. Ronan had enjoyed the brief surge of power of being a Power for a few minutes, and now that he didn't have that any more he would get moments of regretting it. Nita had been close to him in Ireland, and would naturally be more sympathetic with his almost nameless longing for something he could never have again.

"Does she?" Kit challenged. "I mean, had you ever heard of her before today?"

"There's a lot of things you've never heard of. I mean, had you ever heard of wizardry before you got your manual?" Nita looked at him, a half-amused smirk on her face. Kit opened his mouth to talk. "And _before _you go on about how she's quite a big figure in the wizard world, wizardry is a big thing in our world but you didn't know about it before either. So shush."

Kit frowned, and moved over to the bookshelf in the small room, busying his hands with flicking idly through the ordered volumes. His hand lingered on one of the hard-backed books, "Ice Cold. Tom Swale." He let his finger drift down the spine, smooth against the plastic dustcover of the book, feeling overwhelming sadness rush over him like a wave. Kit's gut tightened in sympathy for what Tom must be feeling right now. _Carl . . ._ he thought silently, drifting the word out like a prayer. _I hope you're all right_.

"Here we are, luvvies. It's a bit hot, but ne'er you mind, just blow on it an' it'll be right as rain in no time." Chuckling under her breath, Morganna placed a heavy tray on the low coffee table, and Kit glanced at it distractedly. He watched as Ronan frowned slightly, and the air seemed to hum gently for a brief second, so brief Kit wondered if he'd imagined it. Whatever the small spell had accomplished seemed to satisfy Ronan, as the

Irish boy nodded at Nita. Nita inclined her head slightly in acknowledgement, and bent down to gingerly pick up two mugs of the steaming hot tea, passing one mutely to Ronan.

Morganna had one herself, lodged in between her chubby hands, her cheeks red as she blew on the mug. "Christopher, isn't it? Don't you want one?"

Kit flushed, and Nita giggled over the edge of her tea. "Kit," he corrected awkwardly. "I'll wait for it to cool down a bit on its own."

"Suit yourself," Morganna said with a shrug, settling into one of the armchairs. "So, let's brainstorm. What else do we know about your Senior?"

Nita raised one eyebrow slowly. "He's just disappeared, from every listing, every written record he was ever in."

"Sounds like he was masked." Morganna chuckled. "He ain't disappeared, ducky. Someone's just playing havoc."

Nita set the mug down so hard the table bounced a little, and she winced. "You mean . . ." A sick feeling was creeping up her throat. "He could have been _there_, still there, at his work, and—"

Morganna shrugged. "Worth a try. Don't have any other leads, do you?"

"I _said _we should ask around at his workplace," Ronan said, with a fierceness that surprised Nita.

"I think I've got one more lead."

All three turned to see Kit still at the bookcase. A heavy book was lying on his hands, and he moved it slowly, facing the cover to them. It was Tom's fantasy novel, 'Ice Cold', and on the front was a picture of an ice cavern with a powerful witch sat on the throne.

"Ah. I used that as inspiration for my—" Morganna started.

"No, you didn't." Kit dropped the book down onto a side cabinet with a heavy thud. "Tom used it as inspiration for you. And this—" He waved his hand around, and then pointed at her. "Easy. Mrs. Doubtfire. Tom and Carl were watching it the other week. I remember because I went to see them about—about—" His eyes flickered guiltily to Nita before flicking away. "Never mind." Nita flushed uncomfortably and fidgeted, her grey eyes darkening as she processed what Kit was saying. "And your name. Morganna. Dairine shifted a copy of "La Morte D'Arthur" out of the way when we saw Tom last, and Morganna is a variant of Morgan Le Fey. It all makes sense now. You're just an illusion, designed to distract us while . . ." Bile rose to Kit's throat, and he choked it down quickly, feeling sick. "While our planet is attacked."

Morganna rose up slowly, chuckling, her small bulk shaking. She spread her hands . . . and disappeared.

Only, so did everything else.

Thankfully Nita was a lot better in a crunch than the two boys, and she instinctively ran through the familiar syllables in her mind of the shielding spell she used all too often, widening it to encompass Ronan and Kit. Kit dazedly fed in some of his own power to the spell, winding in his own subtle frequencies and signature of magic.

Gasping in the oxygen and being thankful the gravity on the planet was similar to that on Earth, Kit looked across at Nita and Ronan wordlessly.

Nita, as usual, wasn't lost for words. "Couldn't you have let slip your idea before stranding us on a technically empty planet with no oxygen?" She looked amused rather than mad for a second before worry replaced both expressions.

"Guess we'd better go," Ronan said, shrugging, somewhat at a loss.

Nita nodded, looking lost, and impulsively Kit squeezed her left hand in his own. She looked at him, startled, eyes widening, before she smiled and squeezed his hands back. Holding Nita's hand reminded him of the first spell they'd ever done together. _The one that brought Fred to us..._

In her stare, Kit could tell they were both thinking the same thing, without using wizardry, and that thought was as reassuring as it was frightening. Whatever it was, holding Nita's hand gave him the same feeling as it had the first time, that of being safe, of being part of something bigger than just him . . .

Ronan coughed delicately, looking embarrassed, and Nita looked at him sheepishly, but didn't let go of Kit's hand.

* * *

It was an uncomfortable reminder of the other-world battle that had taken place in Ireland, and this time they didn't even have the elemental Objects of Power that they'd had that time. In this battle, when people were seriously injured, healing wouldn't be as whole or as quick as it should be.

_He _was just as powerful, as terrifying in real life. Dairine's breath had quickened, and Annie's hand had tightened reflexively on her arm. It hurt, but Dairine didn't notice. A large army was spread out before them, as many as they had on their side, headed by a figure on a black horse. The horse had eight legs, and each was shod in a glimmering thick block metal. It was large, and terrible, and somehow breathtakingly beautiful at the same time. _He _was the same, awful in a way that crunched your insides, but on the outside flawlessly perfect. The only thing that marred his aesthetic beauty was the sneer on his face, turning those bright eyes into hard crystals of hatred.

Beside him, on a smaller horse, was Tom. Or what could have once been Tom. Red-eyed and crazed, this wasn't the Tom Swale they'd once known. This was the Tom Swale driven insane by false ideas planted in his mind by the Lone Power.

"We have a chance, it wasn't willing, he was duped..." Annie was muttering. "He can only keep him if it was willing, and it wasn't willing, oh powers it wasn't willing..."

Dairine clung onto her hope and held it in front of her like a beacon.

Then the fighting began.

Energy swirled in the air, clashing in a barrage of colours and sound. A hideous smell filled the air, like sulphur, burning and hot. It was too hot to fight, but fight on the wizards did. They had to.

Snarling beasts launched forwards first, shaggy and grey furred with the eyes of humans, greens and blues and browns, haunted and terrified. Carefully constructed energy diagrams flared up all over the park, knocking them back, knocking them down and away but not for long. The air was thick with blood and grunts and pain. Dairine flung up her arm, lashing out with an abrupt sizzle of magic, and joined with a band of wizards to knock out a creature that looked like a Manticore. _Myths have sources in reality..._ Dairine thought dazedly, and risked a look upwards.

A band of wizards in their thirties were grouped together, as the Lone Power raged and brought down his wrath in a surge of hatred. One of them was holding up something tightly, a long stick of wood, glowing with symbols, and Dairine made a mental note to ask later. Lightning streaked out from the wood, clashing with the purple energy from the Lone Power. Around them, tree shifted, joining the battle. Someone had brought the nearest ones to life, and some statues too... Dairine remembered reading about Nita and Kit's battle with the Lone Power and the _Naming of Lights, _the _Book of Night with Moon _in their speech, and felt with awe the power that had coursed through them to bring all the stationary inhabitants of Central Park to life.

But Dairine must have kept her gaze upwards for too long. Something red crackled through the air, something black and red and with feathers. It collided with her face, and she cried out as blood obscured her vision. She stumbled to the ground, clutching her eyes with the pain, and heard Gigo whimpering her name through the confusion. A nudge by her feet told her Gigo was standing guard over her, and a startled _kawk! _told her the creature that had attacked her was gone thanks to her partner. Annie was there suddenly, holding her by the elbows and mumbling obscenities under her breath in Gaelic and German. Magic crackled through the air, tangible by its sound and smell, and Dairine stumbled forwards until she was on her knees, and her hands were on Gigo. Reaching into her wizardry, she let her power flood from her into her partner. Gigo tensed under her touch, and let the power flow into him. Then she fell backwards as Gigo recoiled, letting loose their combined power in a furious and controlled attack.

Screaming filled Dairine's ears, and kept behind Gigo as the tiny 'bot battled for all his worth. He wasn't the only one. Around the field, the wizards kept battling on, past their fallen friends and partners and struggling on through the tears and pain.

The battle continued, showing no signs of stopping any time soon.

* * *

The long distance jump flung them to their knees on the surface of the moon, not far from the Sea of Tranquility. Kit stumbled to his feet, feeling dizzy and wobbly. His eyes widened as he glanced down at the planet's normally tranquil surface, and couldn't say anything for a moment.

When the words came, he stumbled forwards to grab Nita's shoulder. "Neets."

"Wha-" Nita mumbled drowsily, leaning on Kit and letting him help her up. Her shoulders slumped and her mouth fell open. "_No_..." she whispered, suddenly lost and sounding smaller than she ever had. She turned in Kit's grasp, looking at him with an expression that reminded Kit vaguely of an animal caught in the glare of a car's headlights. "No- we have to- _Kit_..."

Kit shook his head firmly. "Another minute, Neets. We'll be no good if we go down there and we're too weak to stand up."

Ronan was struggling to his feet as they spoke, and his dark eyes lingered on the stormy landscape. The Earth had never looked so bad. The atmosphere, normally a tangle of white streaks, was laced with red lines. _Like blood..._ _Ohgodohgodohgod... Like blood..._

"Kit's right," Ronan heard himself saying, too distracted to do anything. Inside his head, Michael raged, wishing for a power they no longer had. _I know, Michael, _Ronan thought furiously, soothing the beast inside of him._ I wish we could stop it too._

Nita seemed close to tears. "_Kit_--" she pleaded, looking at him hollowly. Kit kept his ground firmly, staring at her, challengingly. Ronan found himself moved by Kit's strength. _You can say 'no' to _that _face?_ With new respect and admiration for the small-but-tough Hispanic wizard, Ronan moved over to stand by Kit's right shoulder, silently flanking and supporting him by his stance.

Kit was troubled, deeply, but knew if they went down in their current state they wouldn't be doing anyone an iota of good. "We wait. Another minute."

"That's what you said a minute ago," Nita said, her voice edged with a laughter that Ronan knew wasn't from humor but had sources in a blind hysteria. Now _he _could plainly see what she was thinking, any fool could. Her mind lingered on her father and Dairine, who were both probably caught in that power struggle down below.

Never had a minute passed by so slowly. Seconds dragged into hours, and in that time Ronan cursed silently and furiously all the poxy scientists with their annoyingly correct theories of relativity.

Eventually Kit lifted his head. Ronan knew the expression, of worry and concern, and also knew that Kit was wondering briefly how come _he _had to be the leader all of a sudden. That responsibility was new to Kit, but he was dealing with it as professionally as Ronan had come to expect of him.

"Let's go," Kit said, the words sounding as if he'd had trouble forming them, let alone getting them out.

Never had those words been so waited for. Nita barely waited for the 'go', formulating her jump and leaping as soon as it left Kit's mouth, but he didn't berate her for her 'jumping the gun' as it were, for he'd set his jump to go at the same time.

It was like something out of a B-grade sci-fi flick, all funky lights and large creatures that looked almost as if they couldn't really move, and then surprised you with their grace and fluidity of their deadly movements.

Afterwards, Nita would describe the carnage and chaos as "a terrible light show, prettier than the aurora borealis that I've seen pictured a thousand times in the books at the library" but then would go on to add "but it was one of the most dreadful sights I've ever seen."

At the moment, though, blind panic was all that went through Nita's mind. The Starsnuffer, resplendent in the shadow of a thousand suns, was losing, as he always must, as he always should. Blinding light spattered against him from a glowing stick, held jointly by a group of seniors. The sound of death echoed around the park, chilling in mixed syllables of the Speech and some other unworldly voices that never sounded more familiar than in that moment. Entropy spelled entropy no matter how it was said.

It all seemed to happen in slow motion. Eight voices joined together, the ones holding the staff, a jumble of accents all running through some ancient syllables, some ancient spell. The Lone One, pulling away, his horse neighing and unhorsing him. He tumbled to the ground, reaching one hand out to a dishevelled wretch by his side, a mess of darkness and blood, before tumbling backwards into nothingness.

Just as suddenly, the forces of evil under his command just disappeared, as if they were never there, but the aftermath unfortunately didn't disappear as suddenly.

Beside her, Nita was faintly aware of Ronan dashing to someone's aid, and Kit retching from the stench of blood and burning. Absently thankful she had nothing left to throw up, Nita looked around her in a daze, for the first time in her life not knowing what to do. Before, losing her mom, faced with horrific choices where she held death in her own hands, she'd been confused, lost, but now... Now she didn't even have a clue where to start. _This must be what it's like to be grown up... Not having someone to show you the way... Not being allowed to stumble on blindly, to have to make choices on your own..._

Swallowing, Nita's thoughts abandoned her when she caught a flash of red hair in a heap somewhere near the middle of the clearing, and panic took over. Stumbling around wizards, the able ones helping the less able to their feet, the eight seniors who had wielded the staff to destroy the Lone Power again setting up what resembled a rather complicated spell that would hide the events from the everyday world, Nita ignored the buzzing in her ears, intent on only one thing, one person.

"Dairine!" Her sister's name leaving her mouth in a jagged whisper, Nita could only stare at the scene. Dairine was crouched, clothing torn, bloody and burned, one arm still flung over her face. Gigo was nuzzling her side sadly, his simple features twisted into a sad frown.

"Gigo," he said mournfully, nudging Dairine's foot. Nita understood that. The meaning was clear. '_Why won't you get up, Dairine? Why won't you move?'_

"No, oh no, oh no, oh no..." Nita knew she was muttering wildly, but she dropped to her knees, pain winding her and leaving her breathless. She reached out blindly and pulled her little sister onto her lap, terror leaving her incapable of much else.

"Nnngg..."

Nita's heart leapt into her mouth, salty and bitter, and the buzzing in her ears changed into a loud ringing noise. "Dari?"

"Nita?" On Nita's lap, Dairine gingerly started to move, her small form shaking with the exertion. "Hurts..." she murmured, trying to sit up. Nita supported her as Dairine twisted to sit up properly. Dairine moved her arm away from her face, and twisted, her face blank of any expression. "Why's it so dark? Nita?"

Dairine knew Nita was a quiet person, not extremely outspoken unless she was baited, and Nita's sudden, fierce silence unnerved her and told her the truth all in one second.

"Oh, _Dari..._" Nita breathed, her voice tight, and she just pulled Dairine to her, her hand through Dairine's hair. "It'll be okay. Everything will be fine. _Fine_."

"Fine?" Dairine pulled back slightly, gripping tightly onto Nita's hand, feeling giddy, as if she was suddenly lighter than usual. "How can it be fine? It took my eyes. It took my sight."

Nita would have cried had she any more tears to cry. Dairine's voice tore her heart, and Nita didn't know how it could ever be fixed again.

* * *

The funeral was larger than usual for just a simple accident.

Kit kept his gaze on the vicar as the service rolled on in the grounds of Central Park. _'A bus crash, huh? That's the best they could come up with?'_

'_They couldn't exactly say they died being the bravest people on the planet, fighting the biggest evil that doesn't come from within us, could they?'_

Kit felt a warm rush as Nita's voice entered his head, tired-sounding, but with an underlying fierceness that hadn't been there before. '_I can't even imagine the headlines CNN would come up with.'_

'_Me neither,_' came the reply, tinged with open regret.

A flash of red and ash-brown by his right caught his attention, and he turned to smile faintly at Nita, Dairine and their father. Harry seemed older somehow, more hunched, and his grip on Dairine was ardent. Admiration was open in his sad gaze though, as he looked across at the grieving families. They'd lost their sons and daughters, fathers and mothers, friends and relations, and although she was injured badly, Dairine was still there. Annie was to his right, ready to catch him if he fell. For the moment, the Callahans were strong together, Kit somehow an extension to the family. Discretely he let his hand fall and intertwine with Nita's, the touch echoing the warmth in their thought contact.

"Tom's not here," Nita said softly, keeping her voice low.

"Are you surprised?" Kit asked, his voice just as hushed. "He's devastated. Being taken over by the Lone Power, a vessel for all that hatred..." He shuddered. "Both he and Carl respectively think it's their own personal fault."

"They and every other wizard here," Nita muttered.

Kit grunted in agreement. "They did good, though. The seniors, I mean. Merlin's staff. Didn't expect to see that ever taken out."

Nita inclined her head slightly, making a mental note to look it up when she got home, for the moment pretending she knew what he was going on about.

"Do you think this will ever stop?"

After a long silence, Nita answered Kit's question. "Death, no. Fighting the Lone Power... there's still a long way to go yet. But we have to keep on going. Mom taught me that." There was a quiet admiration in Nita's voice as she spoke, and Dairine was gripping Nita's arm tighter too. "We have to fight to keep going. In Life's name and for Life's sake."

"I assert that I will employ the Art which is Its gift in Life's service alone," Dairine murmured, her voice tentative.

"I will guard growth and ease pain," Kit murmured, tears starting to cloud his vision again. Names were being read out by the vicar, and it took a while before he could even properly listen.

"_Thomas Eglee. May his soul and family be at peace."_

"I- I will fight to preserve what grows and lives well in its own way..." Nita choked back a sob.

"_Janet Bugler. May her soul and family be at peace."_

"And I will change no object or creature unless its growth and life, or that of the system of which it is part, are threatened." That was Annie, her soft Irish lilt caressing the words.

"_Advit Hahlee. May his soul and family be at peace."_

"To these ends, in the practice of my Art," Dairine whispered brokenly.

"_Ben Henderson. May his soul and family be at peace."_

"I will ever put aside fear for courage," Nita continued faintly.

"_Norah Brown. May her soul and family be at peace."_

"And death for life," Kit managed, looking at Nita, his thoughts displayed in his eyes for the world to see.

"_Dr. Jon Bloom. May his soul and family be at peace."_

"When it is fit to do so," Nita said, her knees trembling.

"_Chad Davis. May his soul and family be at peace."_

"Looking always towards the Heart of Time."

"_Jennifer Bradley. May her soul and family be at peace."_

"Where all our sundered times are one."

"_Christina Bradley. May her soul and family be at peace."_

"And all our myriad worlds lie whole."

"_And April Jefferson. May her soul and family be at peace."_

"In That from Which they proceeded." Kit finished, with a shuddering breath, moving his gaze from Nita to the bench now being dedicated to those lost. The simple engraving was small, three words, but poignant. Even to the normal people, the words were beautiful, but for the wizards the words were bittersweet and painful and a sweet reminder of all that follows life.

"What's loved, lives," Dairine murmured joyfully, her voices light and heady on the breeze. A smile was on her face, despite the pain, as she echoed the words of the monument to their fallen comrades.

The crowd dispensed, as crowds tend to do, and grieving families moved on, to spread ashes or to intern bodies, and to finally be at peace. Most of them oblivious to the fact that their sons, their daughters, helped save the world.

Darkness fell that night, colder than it ever had before, but the words on the bench shone out in the darkness, with a faint warm light, as they would for a long time afterwards, a friend to lost travelers and lost souls.

_What's loved, lives.

* * *

_

Here ends Part One of the "Dancing on the Sky" trilogy.

* * *


End file.
